The Milburn Big Box Set

by Nancy McGovern

  Laura’s eyes flashed wide. “Got you.” She fished her phone out of her purse. “I’ll ring Sandy now.” As it was ringing, she tipped the mouthpiece away from her face and raised her eyebrows. A small smile played on the edge of her lips. “So, you and Nathan, at the beach, last night, huh?”

  “Oh, it was nothing,” Faith said, going over the other side of the cage like she was checking it out some more. Really she wanted to avoid the subject. She wasn’t sure how she felt about him yet. How she could translate the butterflies she got in her stomach whenever she talked to him into a feeling that could be spoken in words, how she could work out what it meant that his deep dark eyes seemed to call out to her…

  Laura’s eyes were piercing as she watched Faith through the cage, and she gave a knowing smile. “Oh, hey, Sandy…”

  *****

  Josiah was sitting on the minuscule porch of what looked like a tiny shed on wheels. It was finished very well, with blue siding and gray shutters and trim.

  “Hi, Josiah,” Laura said in a friendly tone. “Is this…” She waved her hand toward his house, not quite knowing how to word the question. They’d assumed the bigger house at the front of the lot was his, but when they’d knocked on the door the guy had told them to go way in back beyond the trees.

  “Yes, it’s my house,” Josiah said acidly. “I don’t expect you’ve heard of the Tiny House Movement.”

  “No,” Faith said. It actually did sound vaguely interesting, but freeing Nathan was about the only thing in the world she had headspace for right then. “We came to—”

  “The typical American home measures around 2,600 square feet,” he said disapprovingly. “Unnecessary space and expense, if you ask me. I have 300 square feet on two levels here, more than enough for me. And no mortgage to tie me down.”

  “That’s interesting,” Faith said quickly, then hurried to add more before he could continue espousing his views. “As you know, Nathan and I met you yesterday at the beach.”

  He flicked his matted blond hair out of his eyes. “We didn’t meet. We bumped into each other.”

  “Yeah,” Faith said, impatient. “Did you get out the gate in time? Before Ellis came to lock up?”

  Josiah stood. “Are you two trying to come over here and get me in trouble?”

  Laura put on a tough voice. “Just answer the question, Josiah.”

  Faith glanced over at her. There were no tears shining in Laura’s eyes, and Faith was impressed.

  “The gate was open and I didn’t see Ellis,” he said. “This week’s already going bad enough. I don’t need suspicion on my head. Now get the heck outta here.”

  An image of Nathan in a cell flashed in Faith’s mind, and she was beginning to feel desperate. “Did you kill Joanne?”

  “No!” Josiah exploded. “Go, right now!”

  “We’re just trying to find out who did it,” Laura said, her voice cracking into the threat of tears. “You don’t have to be such a jerk.”

  Faith grabbed her by the arm. “Come on, Laura. He’s not worth it.” As they were striding back through the garden, Faith hissed, “Don’t cry,” at her. “Don’t give him the satisfaction.”

  “Wait, wait, wait a minute,” Josiah said, hurrying behind them. “You listen and you listen good. On the night Joanne was killed, I came right back here and went to bed. Remember, in the meeting, I was saying I was tired. I left early. My cousin’s the guy in the house up there,” he said, nodding at the house. “Ask him, I dropped in there with smoothies left over from the shack. Then I went back to my house and slept. And you can ask him about yesterday, too. I’d heard those kids making trouble earlier in the day by the beach. It was them, I’m guessing.”

  *****

  It turned out that Josiah’s story did check out.

  “Unless he just got his cousin to cover for him,” Laura said.

  Faith couldn’t stop tapping away on the armrest in the taxi, willing the traffic to part like the red sea so they could make their way through. “It would have been quicker to walk.”

  “It ain’t my fault,” the driver said, annoyed.

  Faith was never normally bad tempered, but with such guilt on her mind, her fuse was becoming shorter and shorter. It was her fault Nathan was in a cell right now. If she hadn’t suggested going to the beach, none of this would ever have happened. “I didn’t say that it was,” she snapped back at the driver.

  Laura looked through the windshield from her place in the backseat and scoped the traffic up ahead. “I think it would actually be better to get out and walk. You’re right.”

  Faith shelled out the money in a blind rush and handed it to the driver. “Thanks,” she said quickly, and then they were gone, sprinting down the sidewalk toward Paradise Point.

  “Do you think someone cut the phone lines?” Faith asked Laura, breathlessly.

  Laura shook her head. “I have no idea. When Sandy goes home, it usually goes on an answering machine. But it just kept going beep beep beep and disconnecting.”

  “Maybe she’s left it off the hook?” As they went along, Faith realized she really should put those jogging sneakers to use more often. Her chest was heavy and it was hard to take a breath. A stitch was developing in her side and the further and further they went along, their sandals pounding the pavement, the more she could taste metal in her mouth.

  After what felt like an eternity, they reached the kiosk, where Sandy was talking on one phone, while three others were off the hook.

  Faith and Laura panted, waiting for her to come off the line. She put her finger up to mean she’d only be a minute, but her expression showed she was seriously overwhelmed. “Just one minute, sir,” she said, then covered the speaker part of the receiver. “I’m on the phone to the Sheriff’s Department. I have to stay on it. The national press have just found out about the whole incident, and journalist after journalist is calling. I had to take everything off the hook.”

  “Do you have any of the names of those boys?” Faith said. “You know, the ones who came in and made trouble.”

  “They were throwing rocks at Ellis,” Laura added.

  “Yes, Deputy Sheriff, I’m still here… Deputy, the report we logged regarding Ellis Pittman and the young boys… do we have the names of any of the boys?” She shook her head. “Afraid not, girls. He says he can’t disclose that information, because they’re minors.”

  Laura leaned on the kiosk desk. “Please can I speak to him?”

  “Laura Edwards wants to speak to you,” Sandy said into the phone. “Is that all right?” She then handed over the receiver to Laura and looked at all the phones off the hook, puffing out a long breath.

  “Tyler,” Laura said desperately. “It wasn’t Nathan that attacked Ellis, I’m sure of it. It was those boys, the boys that keep coming in and making trouble… Well, we don’t have any evidence…”

  Faith’s heart was already beginning to sink.

  “Well, shouldn’t you at least go check it out?” Laura said desperately. “All right, bye then.” She handed the phone back to Sandy, looking resigned.

  Faith felt frustrated. She would have never given up so easily. “So what did he say?”

  “He said they’re looking into it and he can’t give me any more information at this time,” Laura said.

  “Argh, that guy.” Faith put her hands on her hips, looking this way and that down the street, wondering what on earth they could do next. “I know,” she said, her eyes brightening. They needed to speak to Ellis. Not only had he said he knew who killed Joanne, maybe he could shed some light on who really attacked him. “Sandy, where does Ellis live?”

  Sandy began to rifle through a stack of papers on her desk. “Yes, that’s Faith Franklin,” she said into the phone, just as she pulled out a piece of paper that Faith could see read ‘Ellis Pittman’. Then Sandy frowned, pulling the paper back to her chest. “A danger? You mean…” Her eyes grew wide, and she pressed the receiver away from her mouth. She couldn’t quite meet Faith�
��s eyes. “Unfortunately, I’m not authorized to give—”

  Faith wasn’t about to get so close, then get stopped in her tracks by Deputy Valdez. She reached forward across the kiosk desk and snatched the piece of paper from Sandy, knowing she’d have to apologize later. Sandy held onto it and it tore, but Faith got enough – the street address and the zip, just not the building number. “Lower Beach Drive,” she read, wishing she were a Floridian native.

  “I know where that is!” Laura said, grabbing her hand. “Let’s go!”

  Sandy was shouting after them, but Faith and Laura were already running as fast as their legs would carry them, weaving through the slow traffic.

  *****

  Chapter 20

  It wasn’t long before Faith and Laura turned into Lower Beach Drive, but it was long enough for the Deputy to have swung into the street, all sirens blazing, and have parked up in front of Ellis’ small Key West style home. Ellis stood on his front porch, his arms folded across his chest.

  Deputy Valdez pointed his handgun directly at Faith. “Stop right there!”

  Faith froze and put her hands in the air. She could hear her own pulse hammering through her whole body, even beating in her face. Laura froze alongside her.

  “Don’t move!” Deputy Valdez hollered, then edged his way toward Faith, his gun still pointed. “You can relax, Miss Edwards,” he said to Laura, then released the handcuffs from his belt and began to cuff Faith. “Faith Franklin, you are arrested on the suspicion of conspiracy to commit murder, alongside Nathan Edwards.”

  “What?!” Laura said.

  Another car from the Sheriff’s Department swung into the street and two men Faith didn’t recognize, in uniform, jumped out and pointed their guns at her, too. It was so surreal, she couldn’t even believe it was happening. “But I’m innocent,” she said quietly, not wanting to shout in case she startled them. People had been killed for less.

  “I want to come down to the Department,” Ellis said loudly. “And straighten this out once and for all.”

  Faith turned to look at him as she was being led to the car, hoping to see a lifeline in his face. Did he know she was innocent? After all, he’d announced that he knew who the murderer was. But she got no clue from his facial expression. All she saw was a huge scar.

  *****

  “Someone go and move Mr. Edwards,” Deputy Valdez barked as he led Faith into the Sheriff Department. “You’ll have to sit there,” he said, nodding at a metal chair next to the leather chairs she remembered sitting next to Nathan in. That felt like such a long time ago. It had all gone so wrong since then, and Faith just didn’t know how it was ever going to get fixed. “You’ll be going in a cell,” he said. “But we don’t want you next to Mr. Edwards, so we’re moving him.”

  “Fine,” Faith said. She felt like totally giving up. Not only was she arrested, she didn’t have a single idea of who the murderer actually was.

  “Do I have to tie your leg to the chair, or can I trust you not to run?” Deputy Valdez asked sternly.

  “Tyler!” Laura protested. “She’s fine.”

  “I’m not going to run,” Faith said, dejected. “Trust me.”

  Laura sat down next to Faith and put her arm around her shoulders. Faith felt so numb she barely got any comfort from it at all. She wondered what her mother was going to think, what Grandma Bessie would say. For perhaps the first time in her life, she was glad she hadn’t ever known her father, and that she didn’t have a whole mess of cousins and aunts and uncles, so she wouldn’t have to deal with their disapproval of her being a murderer.

  Ellis came in the front door and eased his bulk down into a leather chair opposite them. At first, Faith kept avoiding his glance, looking everywhere but at him – at her teal sandals, at a photo of the staff on the wall, at Laura – but she felt his gaze on her. She tried to ignore it but under pressure, her stare snapped up at him. “I didn’t do it, you know,” she said. “I didn’t kill Joanne and I didn’t attack you.”

  To her surprise, he nodded slowly. “I think… I think I believe you.”

  “You said you knew who did it,” Laura said angrily. “And it wasn’t Faith. So who was it? Or was that all just a game to you?”

  “I know who did it, all right,” Ellis said. “I was just working out if they had an accomplice or not. Now, when I was on the way over here in the back of the car, I called everyone from the Park. Sandy, Tonya, Josiah, Lula, just about everyone. And I’m gonna tell y’all exactly what happened.”

  He kept on talking about how he’d known who it was for such a long time, and he’d wanted to give them the chance to do the honest thing, but Faith’s attention was pulled elsewhere. At the front desk, two members of staff were talking in hushed tones. The first thing she heard was, “was found”. Next, she heard the words “Joanne Cobb’s place”, “syringe,” and “poison,” but with Ellis’ booming voice reverberating around the Sheriff’s Department, it was nigh on impossible to hear anything more. But suddenly, a little bit of hope was injected into Faith, and before she knew what was happening, her mind had pulled itself out of her slump and was beginning to tick. This thing wasn’t over.

  *****

  “State your theory, Mr. Pittman,” the Sheriff said impatiently.

  The Department was stuffed to the brim with people. Faith noted that Ellis sure loved to call meetings and be the center of attention. She was still sitting in the same chair next to Laura – they’d never gotten around to moving her. But as per Ellis’ request, Deputy Valdez had begrudgingly brought Nathan out of his cell. Faith had turned to look at him, her heart feeling like it might jump out of her chest. He shrugged and gave her a cheeky smile, like the whole thing was no big deal, but there was a nervous energy about him that meant he couldn’t keep still, and dark circles hung under his eyes.

  Ellis stood and cleared his throat with an elaborate sequence of coughs.

  “Come on,” Tonya said impatiently. She and her daughter Stephanie were standing by the door, both looking extremely irritated. “You pull us out of business hours again, forcing us to let down customers again. Can’t you just tell us who it is and get it over with, please?”

  “Yeah,” Josiah said, slouching down in one of the leather chairs. “You should have just told us in the first place, man.”

  “Quiet!” Deputy Valdez barked. “Mr. Pittman, proceed.”

  “The killer…” Ellis said, looking around the room dramatically. “…is none other than Nathan Edwards.”

  “Liar!” Nathan shouted.

  Both Faith and Laura sprang to their feet.

  “Sit!” the Sheriff instructed.

  “It’s not true!” Faith said, sitting back down.

  Laura sat down, then stood back up again. “He’s innocent!” Then she looked at Tyler and sat back down.

  “Explain,” the Sheriff said to Ellis.

  “We had the meeting where there was the argument regarding the sale of cupcakes,” Ellis said. “And Deputy Valdez was in attendance. Nathan is working for Faith Franklin, who was having the argument with Joanne. To defend her honor, he decided to sneak back in and kill her.”

  “Yes, that’s quite possible!” Valdez said. “And Miss Franklin informed me it only took him a matter of moments to find an alternative route in and out of Paradise Point, rather than the front gate. So it stands to reason he already knew about this route, as it was the route he had taken when murdering Joanne Cobb.”

  Faith put her head in her hands, wishing they would all get swallowed by a black hole so that none of this was happening. She didn’t for a second believe that Nathan did it. No way. She took a glance up at him, and he was staring right at her, shaking his head, his eyes desperate.

  “I believe you,” she mouthed, not knowing if he would be able to make it out, but needing to do it anyways.

  “Joanne was such a kind woman,” Ellis said, his voice cracking just a little. “What Nathan did was so unnecessary. Sure, Joanne had been angry. But she was wil
ling to make it up. That’s why she took a box of cupcakes over to the tearoom that evening, as a peace offering to Faith.”

  Something clicked into place for Faith. “The cupcakes!” she said so loud that Laura jumped.

  “What about them?” the Sheriff asked impatiently.

  “Oh, my goodness!” Faith said. “I can’t believe I didn’t work this out!” She turned to the staff members who had been discussing the syringe. “Were you saying that a syringe was found in Joanne’s place, and either it had poison in it, or it was something to do with the poison?”

  The man at the desk looked nervously up at the Sheriff and Deputy, then down at the floor. “Um… maybe…?”

  “Answer the question, Wallace,” the Sheriff said firmly. “No, you were not supposed to be talking about the case within ear shot of any suspects or witnesses, but if you were, then you were.”

  “Yes, yes, I was,” he said, embarrassed.

  “Joanne wasn’t murdered!” Faith said, hoping against hope she was right. “She was trying to kill me, and killed herself by accident! We were out of cherries, so they didn’t come from our place. Tonya, do you guys use cherries in any of your dishes?”

  “No,” Tonya said.

  “What about you, Josiah?”

  “Nope,” he said. “I’m allergic. Can’t stand the things.”

  “The only person who actually used cherries was Joanne,” Faith said. “I saw cakes with cherries on her menu. The syringe was found in her place. I was the last person to see her alive but I never put cherries on any of the cupcakes I took over to her. I think she meant to poison me, and ate one of the cherries she’d poisoned by mistake. Why don’t we check the cupcakes that were sent to me? I still have them, they’re in the freezer at my apartment!”