by Penny Plume
“Don’t be an idiot.”
Garrett shook his head. “I don’t know who has one. Be nice if Ingrid kept a nice spreadsheet with that info, huh?” He said it with a rueful smile, knowing it couldn’t possibly be that easy. “Guess I’ll add that to the list of things I need to find out.”
“You already have a list going?” Jenna asked. “Anything I can write down for you?”
This went back to their time as a couple, when she would help Garrett with his police reports. He hated the paperwork--said it was worse than math homework--and she enjoyed the lingo and research into violation codes. For some reason, it felt really good to type the word “perpetrator.”
“Nah,” Garrett said, “we probably shouldn’t do that anymore, especially on something this big. Might even get some media attention.”
“Wow, really? Well, maybe I can add a few things to the list, since I was the one who found her. What do you have so far?”
She had to be careful. She was digging, looking for anything that would point the suspect list away from her friends and toward Harrison Kavanaugh, and she had to be as delicate as an archaeologist to keep Garrett from getting suspicious.
Garrett checked the crime scene techs to make sure they were out of earshot. “I’m ninety-nine percent sure it wasn’t a ghost.”
Jenna nearly laughed, then realized he was being serious. Maybe she didn’t need to be that careful after all.
Garrett said, “And I need to know where all those folks at your shop were, right before the meeting.”
Jenna’s breath caught. “Who, exactly?”
He ticked them off on one hand: “Lawrence, Wilford, Belma, and Sherri. And you, just to keep anyone from saying I’m playing favorites.”
Jenna imagined the four shop owners telling Garrett the same rumors and suspicions they’d told her. Word would get around town for sure, and just about everyone would be embarrassed. Even if they weren’t killers, the damage to Main Street would be done.
Before she could stop herself, she blurted, “What about Mr. Kavanaugh?”
“Ah, Jenna,” Garrett winced. “I don’t know. I guess the motive is there, with the resort and all, but I think he’d just throw a pile of money at Ingrid instead of killing her. Or he’d hire somebody else to do it.” He looked down at the shops, his eyes flicking from one storefront to the next.
Jenna whispered, “You think Kavanaugh paid one of them…?”
“I don’t think anything. Not yet, anyway. But I want to know what they think, and where they were. Who they saw. See if their stories line up. Heck, they could be in there right now, coming up with solid alibis for each other.”
More like ways to stab each other in the back, Jenna thought. Or, more accurately, clubbing each other on the head. She tried to picture sweet Wilford caving in the top of Ingrid’s skull, his soft, oversized sweater flapping around him.
Or flighty Sherri, while she clutched Mr. Wolfie under one arm.
Or Belma, with...well, Belma might be able to…
No.
She couldn’t believe any of her friends were capable of murdering Ingrid just to get some cash, boost a career or pad a retirement. She wouldn’t believe it unless there was hard evidence proving so, and even then she’d have to look that person in the eye while they confessed. Without that, she’d assume they were being framed.
Harrison Kavanaugh, though—he was ruthless when it came to business. She fully believed he would do whatever he could to make the Lost Haven Resort a reality. That included murder, and setting an innocent person up to take the fall.
The thought of that made her angry. That Ingrid should die—and Main Street along with her—just so Kavanaugh could make more millions and sink his claws even deeper into the town. That was unacceptable.
The more she thought about Ingrid’s death and the ramifications it had for Main Street, her friends, the Lost Haven Resort, and Harrison Kavanaugh, the more she knew that he was responsible.
Now she just had to prove it.
4
The Main Street owners, along with Bart, were still in the Welcome Shoppe when Jenna pushed through the front door. They had gathered in the nook again and Jenna heard the low conversations halt when the door chime sang.
She took a deep breath and walked past the checkout counter and the “Lost Yet?” license plate frames, repeating to herself: One of them might already know.
When she stepped to the edge of the nook, everyone was staring at her.
“Murdered,” Jenna said. She scanned their faces for flinches, glances, smirks. Listened for false gasps or the sound of someone slowly twirling a mustache, whatever that sounded like.
She got nothing.
The group just continued to stare at her until Bart said, “Huh.”
That broke whatever spell had come over them. Everyone started talking at once, and Jenna nearly stepped back from the rush of noise.
“A murder?” Belma crowed. “Here, in little Lost Haven?”
Sherri wrapped Mr. Wolfie even tighter. “I’ll protect you, little baby!”
Bart pulled them both close with one arm. “You’re staying up at the house until this is over.”
“I’m getting a gun,” Lawrence announced. “A shotgun. The biggest one they have.”
“Who’s ‘they’?” Belma asked. She wasn’t being mean—she sounded genuinely curious.
Lawrence shrugged. “You know. The shotgun people.”
Wilford sighed. The lines on his face, which usually framed a gentle smile, had become deep, drooping furrows. “Poor, poor Ingrid. She was so full of…life.”
Jenna sat on a folding chair and waited for a lull in the chatter. “Garrett wants to talk to us—each one of us—about what happened.”
“Why?” Belma said.
“We’re all suspects. Me included.”
Wilford snorted. “That’s ridiculous. We all loved Ingrid.”
Bart cleared his throat and got a sharp nudge from Sherri.
There was an awkward lull in the room until Jenna said, “That’s not true.”
Everyone froze, stunned, and Jenna continued: “Ingrid was a pain in the butt. She was rich, rude, entitled, and completely oblivious to how her actions impacted other people. Her prices were too high and the coffee wasn’t even that good. I think the main reason she ran the Sanctuary Café was to get all the best gossip, which she used to start petty fights for her own amusement.”
Lawrence’s hand had crept up the front of his shirt and was now pressed over his mouth. Belma’s eyes couldn’t get any wider without falling out of her face.
“With all of those faults,” Jenna said, “she still didn’t deserve to die. And if she got killed to clear the way for the Lost Haven Resort—like some obstacle that had to be removed from a construction site—that’s even worse.”
She didn’t look at Bart, but wanted him to pass the message along to his father: Harrison Kavanaugh was on the suspect list too, whether the police agreed or not. She hoped Garrett would change his mind about that, but knowing Garrett as well as she did…
Bart’s phone sprang to life on the coffee table. He glanced at the screen and answered. “Hey Dad. Yeah, we just heard.”
He stood up and walked toward the front of the store, his end of the conversation fading. Jenna strained to listen—without looking like she was straining to listen—until Lawrence stretched a leg out and tapped her knee with his toe.
“That was very wicked what you said about Ingrid. And her body isn’t even cold yet.” His face showed severe disapproval, but his tone was one hundred precent impressed.
“Was any of it wrong?” Jenna asked.
“Heck no,” Belma said. “She was a serious pain in the rear. But you’re absolutely right about her not deserving to die.”
Jenna checked the shop owners again—her friends—for any sign of deceit or guilt. Either they were all innocent, or one of them was a very good liar.
Bart came back, slipping his phone into
his pocket. “Well, that was my dad.”
“We know, sweetie,” Lawrence said.
Bart seemed a little foggy, like he was trying to figure out what he was saying while he was saying it. “The police, uh, Garrett called him. They want to talk to him about Ingrid’s murder.”
Jenna fought the urge to spring out of her chair and give the room a round of high-fives. She settled for: “Is that so?”
“Yeah,” Bart said. “The police want to talk to all of us, me included, and my dad.”
“Right now?” Jenna asked.
“No, tomorrow. Uh, tomorrow morning. Eight o’clock.”
Wilford gave a wry smile. “All my years in Lost Haven, this is the first time I’ve been in the same group as Harrison Kavanaugh. I have to say, it doesn’t feel like I thought it would.” He started to work his way out of the easy chair. “We should all get some sleep. I guess I’ll see you folks downtown—isn’t that what they call the police station in the movies?”
“Yeah, but no,” Bart said. “Dad doesn’t want a whole scene, him going into the cop shop and all. We’re going to do this up at the house, so you’re all coming up there.”
Jenna frowned. “Are you joking?”
“Nope. And the cops, er, Garrett, he agreed. Said it would be good to keep things low-profile if possible.”
“The Kavanaugh Estate,” Belma whispered. “Horizon House. I’ll have to wear my New Year’s Eve dress.”
Bart stuck a hand out for Sherri. “Come on, babe. Tomorrow’s gonna be a long day.”
He helped her to her feet and they headed for the front door. Lawrence and Belma followed, and Jenna held Wilford’s arm while he slowly rose out of the bottomless chair.
“A long day indeed,” he said.
They all said goodnight and Jenna locked the front door behind them. Her young employee Wendy was scheduled to open the shop Friday morning, so the eight o’clock meeting was doable. But the nerve of Kavanaugh to assume it was doable, just because he ordered it…
She spent fifteen minutes cleaning up and venting frustration, washing dishes in the small sink and propping them in the tiny drying rack like a ceramic boobytrap, the whole time trying to imagine what the next day was going to be like.
She eventually gave up, unable to conjure even the slightest idea. She turned off the lights inside The Welcome Shoppe, locked the door again, and started the walk home.
She lived three blocks east of Main Street, away from the lake, and the gentle breeze gave her a slight tailwind. It also carried every sound that occurred behind her, and Jenna lost count of the times she turned at a soft rustling or sliding thump, expecting to see someone there, rushing to cave her skull in.
Each time, the sidewalk was empty.
And each time Jenna faced forward her pace quickened, just a bit. She told herself it was nerves, paranoia—downright silliness—but she couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was watching her, tracking her.
Everyone in town knew where she lived. Take Second Street east until it dead-ends into Pine, then a slight left across the road and you’re in her postage-stamp front yard. If Ingrid’s murderer thought Jenna might cause trouble, it would be simple enough to pick a dark spot between Main Street and the house and wait.
Jenna walked faster and shook her head. “So stupid.”
Stupid, she thought, to think anyone would go to the trouble of killing her.
Stupid, right?
She glanced back. Why were the streetlights so far apart in Lost Haven? What idiot had designed that massive flaw? Actually, she knew the answer; it was in her copy of The Birth of Lost Haven. Harvey Pender (1804-1866), civil engineer, had designed the streets of Lost Haven to—
Not now, nerd brain!
She shook her head again as something large and dark crawled across the sidewalk twenty feet in front of her. Jenna halted in mid-stride, her eyes straining. Her brain ditched Harvey Pender and recalled a tidbit she’d read about seeing in the dark. She turned her head to the side and used her peripheral vision to examine the would-be killer.
Jenna let out a breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding. Lost Haven was known for its fat raccoons, and this beast had to be among the royal family. It dragged its belly across the sidewalk and squeezed beneath a car parked along the street. It was hard to tell with the lake breeze, but Jenna may have heard it wheeze.
She started walking again, a step faster than when she’d pulled up to let the killer raccoon bear cross.
Stupid.
So stupid.
And stupid—very stupid—to basically announce to a room of murder suspects that she intended to make sure whoever killed Ingrid would answer for it.
What was she thinking?
It had seemed like a good idea in the bright lights of her Welcome Shoppe. Now, on a dark street with her dark house waiting ahead, along with a night of creaks and rustles, it ranked among the worst notions she’d ever had.
Jenna treated the last block along Second Street as a runway. By the time she crossed Pine and hit the walkway leading to her front steps she was practically sprinting. She slipped through the wobbly screen door and flipped the flimsy hook latch—something she never did—and crossed the painted wooden floor in one big step.
Keys out, in, and through the front door, then a quick turn of the deadbolt before she twitched the curtain aside and peeked through the window in the door.
The porch, walkway, sidewalk, and streets—as far as she could see along Pine and down Second—were all empty.
Still, she knew, could feel, that somebody was in one of those pockets of shadow.
Jenna worked her way through the house, turning on every light she had, thinking that whoever was out there, she was probably going to see them tomorrow morning at eight o’clock.
She briefly considered taking a shower, decided that was probably the best way to invite the killer into her house, and stepped into the shelter of her non-walk-in closet to change into a t-shirt and boxer shorts.
The shirt was Garrett’s, oversized for her and still smelling faintly of him, but it was the most comfortable sleeping shirt she’d ever had—no sense in getting rid of it just because that was over.
Jenna brushed her teeth and watched the mirror for any movement, and for a few seconds—less time than the shower idea got—she thought about calling Garrett and asking him to sleep over.
On the couch, of course.
For safety.
He’d love it: being needed, her wearing his shirt, being vulnerable.
Well, to hell with all that.
She plucked the largest book she could find off the living room shelves and carried it into her small bedroom. It was a coffee table book full of gorgeous photos of Rome, and she was certain the gladiator statues inside wouldn’t mind being used as a blunt force weapon should someone creep close enough to the bed.
She set the alarm on her phone for seven, left the lights on and curled under the blankets. That lasted fifteen seconds. Feeling too exposed, she checked under the bed (all clear except for an alarming amount of dust) and turned off the bedroom light. Now she was in a little cave of darkness, surrounded by a fully lit house.
She got back into bed and hefted the book. Lawrence was onto something: she needed a shotgun.
Jenna got onto her side, hugging the book and staring out into the bright hallway. She expected a scowling, staring face to tilt around the far corner at any moment, and was still waiting for it when she fell asleep.
The alarm startled her out of oblivion. She sat straight up, confused by the daylight peeking around the curtains, the massive book next to her, and the underlying thrill of being alive.
Then she remembered:
Ingrid.
Main Street.
Kavanaugh.
She yawned and stretched, rolled out of bed and pulled the curtains open. It was a perfect June morning with a few small white clouds drifting above the rustling leaves and pastel blossoms, already bustling with honeybees.
Amazing what sunlight could do to mortal terror. Jenna vaguely remembered the fear of the previous night, but it vanished along with the darkness. No one could possibly be murdered on a day with weather like this.
She turned on some Top 40 music and got into the shower with no concern for her life, telling herself it wasn’t a good day, what with Ingrid still dead and all the Main Street shop owners being suspects. When she was clean and dry she dressed in khaki shorts, a light blue tank top with a summer-weight blouse over it, and sandals.
She checked the mirror and frowned: maybe today was supposed to be more formal. Well, everything at the Kavanaughs was more formal, right? She went back to the shallow closet and pinched the seam of her one suit, a gray off-the-rack number she’d worn for job interviews before dumping everything she had into the down payment on The Welcome Shoppe.
The suit was itchy and too tight in the waist, too loose in the hips. And she never knew what to do with the buttons on the blazer.
Screw it. Things were going to be uncomfortable enough with the murder investigation. She abandoned the suit and headed for the kitchen, bouncing a little to the music.
Not a good day, no.
But it was an interesting day.
Jenna had never been to the Kavanaugh estate, but she’d driven below it dozens of times in her muttering little ’02 Accord to soak up the history. It was built near the northern edge of Lost Haven upon the highest point in the county, with a stunning view of the lakeshore and a dominating position over the other mansions that had sprouted around the base of the hill like mushrooms beneath a towering oak.
The Kavanaugh mansion was named Horizon House because of the 360-degree view, which Jenna heard provided jaw-dropping sunrises and sunsets, particularly in the winter. Nearly all of the mansions in the neighborhood had been built by Harrison Kavanaugh’s grandfather during the peak of the town’s lumber industry, which had earned the Kavanaughs and several other founding families their fortunes.
Those families included the Gallaghers, and Jenna drove past Ingrid’s sprawling, four-story house on her way up the hill. Tall, sculpted hedges made an impenetrable privacy screen, but the gap for the driveway showed a circular parking area in front of the house and a garage the size of a small airplane hangar angling off to the right. Two dark, luxury sedans dozed in the driveway along with a state police cruiser, and Jenna recognized the golden emblem for Roderick’s Funeral Home on one of the doors.
