And maybe, with the information I now had, Brent would have been able to overturn Detective Gartborg’s decision.
Instead, it sounded like Brent and the glamorous detective were celebrating solving—or so they thought—the case by going somewhere together. And it didn’t sound like the somewhere was my house.
Brent came back to the phone. “What did you learn?”
I repeated what I’d mentioned in my message about the man sitting in Suds for Buds until about ten Friday night. “Kassandra said he was looking out the window most of the time. The door to Nina’s apartment would have been in his direct line of sight. Both Kassandra and Buddy told me that at one point, the man stood up as if about to leave, but he sat down again and stared out the window some more. That fits with what Nina and the twins who own Klassy Kitchens told me. Nina tried to get into her apartment, but when she didn’t succeed, Harry and Larry also tested her lock, and then they let her go out through their back door to take a shortcut to my house. Zippy must have come along and broken in, and the man who’d been in the pub must have followed Zippy into Nina’s apartment.”
“That could have been coincidence, but we’ll check into it all again. Anything else?”
I told him about the discrepancy in the addresses that Kassandra gave Summer Peabody-Smith and me and that the Fallingbrook address didn’t exist.
He asked, “What was the address in Lapeer?”
I told him.
“Can you repeat that?” I thought I detected a tiny note of surprise in his voice.
I said it again, slowly.
He was silent for so long that I had to ask if the address I gave him was Zippy Melwyn’s apartment.
I heard him sigh. “I might as well tell you, since you could get yourself into trouble trying to find out. It is the same address. But if Kassandra Pyerson said she now lives at an address that doesn’t exist . . .” He stopped.
I finished the sentence for him. “She could be lying about all of it. Even if Kassandra didn’t live there herself, it’s interesting that she knew that address.”
He conceded, “True. I can tell you one thing. The lock on Zippy’s apartment appears to have been recently changed, and Zippy’s apartment key is shiny and unscratched.”
“Were there paintings in the apartment?”
“Yes. I’ve told Arthur C. Arthurs that I’ll let him know when he can see them.”
“Do you know if the paintings were signed?”
“Zipporah Melwyn signed all of them.”
“Kassandra has been trying to pass those paintings off as her own. After she showed me the photos, I sent her to The Craft Croft. Summer Peabody-Smith hired her. Kassandra told Summer and me that the paintings were ‘in storage.’ I e-mailed the photos to Arthur C. Arthurs. He said they appeared to be blurrier versions of the photographs Zippy Melwyn sent him of her paintings.”
Brent promised, “I’ll look for Kassandra Pyerson at The Craft Croft. Would it be open now?”
“No. I think it’s open from about ten to four on weekdays. If they were Zippy’s paintings, Zippy could have written the threatening letter to someone else, but never sent it. So, it might not mean much except that the photo of the eighteen-nineties woman that had probably been removed from Nina’s locket was with the fragment of the letter.”
“Exactly.”
“Nina has had her loft for a couple of years, at least. If Zippy ever locked Nina out of an apartment they shared or vice versa, it was a long time ago.”
“People often wait many years to carry out their threats.”
“Did investigators see any of Nina’s paintings in Zippy’s apartment?”
“No. If the letter was from Nina and was written many years ago, Nina could have retrieved her paintings and retained her grudge. We’ll have the forensics guys verify that the signatures on the paintings in Zippy’s apartment are Zippy’s.”
I pointed out, “Kassandra could have written the threatening note to Zippy.”
“We’ll talk to her and Buddy again. When we interviewed Buddy earlier, he didn’t mention Kassandra or anyone looking out the pub’s front window that afternoon and evening. Buddy must have thought we cared only about what happened across the street.”
“Buddy also said that Kassandra and the man both left shortly after ten that night, and neither of them came back. Kassandra told me she went back to work that night after her ten o’clock break. Buddy said she definitely didn’t return to work, that night or ever. She hasn’t picked up her share of the tips or her pay, and he hasn’t seen her. She also hadn’t been answering his calls. I saw her early this afternoon when she followed me out of The Craft Croft to tell me about the man in the pub.” I reiterated that Kassandra’s and Buddy’s descriptions of the man fit the thieving magician. My words tumbled out quickly as I stated a few obvious facts. “The magician was a thief. Maybe he decided to eliminate Zippy because she had conspired with him and could report his criminal activity.”
Brent remained patient. “We asked witnesses at other fairs, and none of them reported seeing him collaborating with anyone.”
“Maybe he tried it for the first time on Friday and didn’t like it. And had a very extreme reaction.”
“Very.” Brent was quiet for a second, as if he were about to end the conversation and go somewhere with Detective Gartborg, but then he admitted, “We do have surveillance video from down the street from Suds for Buds and even farther from the entrance to Nina’s loft. The street was dark except for streetlights and ambient light from shops and apartments. The video doesn’t show the front of the Klassy Kitchens building or the door to Nina’s stairway, but it does show the front of Suds for Buds. A man left the pub about ten after ten and walked across the street toward Klassy Kitchens. He was about average height and weight and dressed in dark pants and a pale shirt, and he was carrying something that could have been a briefcase with a garment slung across the top. There was no long beard, and his hair was not white or platinum blond.”
“I think the magician’s white hair and beard were fake. What were his shoes like?”
“Hard to tell, but probably dark. Thanks to your photos, we have the magician’s actual license number, not the many versions he put on exhibitor applications, and we have the name the van is registered to. We have not yet located him, but we will.”
“Good. The name I found for him is Marvin Oarhill.”
Brent whistled. “I’ve told you before that you should have become a police officer. We’re looking for Oarhill because of the thefts and his history as a suspected pickpocket, not because we suspect him of murder.”
“Yet.” I told Brent about the information I’d found about the magician’s fundraising websites that were supposedly to help veterans. “If you dig around, you’ll find his photo. He’s definitely the man who robbed us.”
“Can you send me the links you found?”
“Sure.”
I heard a woman’s voice in the background, and then Brent must have turned his head away from the phone again. He said from a little farther away, “I’m almost done. I’ll be right with you.” He asked me, “Was there anything else you wanted to tell me, Em?”
Yes. Detective Gartborg is not gentle and kind enough for you. I didn’t say it. I merely asked, “Does Kassandra appear in that video?”
“Not at all.”
“Nina?”
“No, and not Zippy, either, and not you or the Klassy Kitchens twins. Kassandra must have gone out the pub’s back door, and Nina and Zippy and the twins must have been on the opposite side of the street from Suds for Buds.”
“I was only on that side of the street, also. And I’d parked the donut car farther north.”
“I saw it. Not in the surveillance video, but when I was driving to the alley you told me about to check out the little pink car.”
I tried to put a smile into my voice. “Our donut car is hard to miss. Oh, and there’s something else. I told you about Rodeo Rod. This afternoon Jocel
yn saw him driving a black van with a white galloping horse where a back window would be if the van had back windows. When I was walking home from work this afternoon, I saw a van that could have been his creeping down Wisconsin Street. I’d already turned the corner toward home and was several blocks away, so I don’t think the driver saw me. The sun glared off something big and white on or near his passenger window that could have been the cowboy hat that Rodeo Rod brought into Deputy Donut earlier today. Rodeo Rod is flirtatious, so that could be why he might have been looking for me, if he was. Maybe he was driving slowly for some other reason. Anyway, because he was at the carnival on Friday, I wondered if you might be able to get more information about him from Marsha’s list of exhibitors.”
“Let’s see.” I heard computer keys clicking. “No Rodeo Rods, and no one listed as a rodeo performer.”
“He did say he’s here early for the rodeo this weekend. On Friday, his jeans were black, and his shirt was pale gray and white checked. And he was wearing black cowboy boots, but not a suit jacket. Both times I saw him, he had on a fringed suede vest.”
“So you’ve added him to your list of suspects. I wouldn’t mind being proved wrong about Nina, and now that you’ve told me about a man fitting the magician’s description and sitting across from Nina’s apartment, I’ll pay more attention to the investigations into the pickpocketing magician.”
I had to swallow hard to manage a thanks and a goodbye.
Dep must have recognized Brent’s voice over the phone. As soon as I disconnected, she jumped off my lap and sat with her nose almost on the front door.
“He’s not coming here tonight, Dep,” I gently told her.
She didn’t move.
I was almost as bad. I didn’t stir from the wing chair where I’d sat during the entire phone conversation with Brent. After I’d sat there numbly for ten minutes or more, the old teasing saying that Misty, Samantha, and I had chanted to each other as teens went through my brain like a fluttering banner. When the going gets tough, the tough call their girlfriends.
I was still clutching my phone in one hand when it rang.
Chapter 21
It was Misty.
I told her, “I was just thinking about you and Samantha.”
“What were you thinking?”
“When the going gets tough, the tough call their girlfriends.”
She laughed. “That old motto still works for me. You talked to Brent a few minutes ago, didn’t you?”
“How did you know?”
“He came storming out of his office.”
I joked, “Do I always cause that reaction in him?”
“Not exactly. He’s naturally upset about . . . everything.”
“I gave him new information about the Zippy Melwyn case. And I made Detective Gartborg wait for him for several minutes, so he was probably upset about making her wait and rushing so he wouldn’t be even later.”
“Then he should have barricaded himself inside his office to stay away from her.” I heard a smile in Misty’s voice. “But that’s not why I called.” She turned serious. “Hooligan and I are outside with a search warrant for Nina’s phone.”
I set Dep gently on the floor, opened the door, waved to Misty and Hooligan to come up onto the porch, and sent them to my guest room. I waited downstairs. I wished I’d checked Nina’s call history. I hoped it was as nonincriminat-ing as her contact list had been.
They clattered back downstairs. “Got it,” Misty said. “Is it okay if Samantha comes over? We’ve barely made plans for tomorrow night, Tuesday, and Wednesday about who’s bringing what to the cabin at Lake Cares Away.”
I’d been so concerned about Nina that I’d hardly given a thought to Samantha and Hooligan’s big day. I wanted to do everything I could to help make it wonderful for both of them. One way to do that might be to show some excitement about their future and get into a celebratory mood with Samantha and Misty. “That would be great. Can you stay, Hooligan?”
He held up the evidence envelope that must have contained the phone. “I’m supposed to take this back, and then I’ll be off duty like Misty is at the moment, but I’m not about to interfere with your bachelorette party plans.”
Misty went outside with him and returned with a pair of jeans and a frilly top. While she was changing and calling Samantha, I went to the kitchen and put a round of brie, a package of sesame flatbreads, and a cut-glass dish of sweet yet savory caramelized onion jam onto the granite-topped island. I took a bottle of chardonnay out of the fridge and set small chocolate-brown plates that Cindy had made, wineglasses, and embroidered cocktail napkins at our places at the island.
I couldn’t help worrying. I was afraid that Nina would not make it to the wedding. I would have to work on my own emotions and prevent tense undercurrents between my law-enforcement friends and me from marring what should be a carefree, jubilant occasion. And Nina had designed the flowers and had been excited about setting them up. I wondered how she was doing and what she was thinking and feeling.
Would Brent be able to attend the wedding? Neither of us had a date for it and the reception, and Samantha had invited us both, along with a plus one. Everyone assumed that neither of us would bring a date. Brent and I had been partying with Samantha, Hooligan, Misty, and Scott since before the other two couples had officially paired off. Brent and I wouldn’t be together at the ceremony, but Samantha had placed us together at the reception’s head table. Both of us had RSVP’d for only one person.
Dep batted a catnip-filled toy owl through the kitchen and into the sunroom. Leaving the owl behind, she dashed back to the living room. I called to her, “Tidying up for company, Dep?”
If she answered, I didn’t hear her, but Misty laughed and joined me in the kitchen. “Samantha’s on her way.” She opened her official notebook. “Can you tell me about your new information? When Brent stormed out, he had that frustrated and distressed look he gets when investigations aren’t going well. Maybe if you tell me what you told him, I can help him sort it out.”
“I thought the investigation was over.” I hadn’t meant to sound bitter.
She glanced at me from underneath her eyelids. “You don’t want it to be, do you?”
“No.” We sat at the stools but decided to wait for Samantha before we started eating and drinking. I repeated my discoveries. Misty scribbled in her notebook. I added, “Do you think that Brent and Detective Gartborg are going to Suds for Buds to talk to Buddy now?”
“Could be. Last I knew, she was about to go on vacation.”
“Where were she and Brent planning to go before I interrupted him with my phone call?”
Misty didn’t answer, but I read sympathy in her eyes.
I caught on. “Brent was taking her out to a late dinner before she left.”
Misty shook her head. “I don’t know if that’s what was happening, but even if it was, it would have been more like them going out together, not him taking her out.”
“That’s a fine line.”
“Don’t take it to heart. They’re colleagues. They worked together this time, and last October, also. Sometimes we just have to talk to other officers about things we can’t talk to civilians about.”
I knew that from Alec. And besides . . . “Brent is free to do whatever he wants. It’s not like he and I are dating. We’re just friends.” I ignored Misty’s smirk. “I hope he makes it to Samantha’s wedding.”
The smirk twitched. “His dinner with Detective Gartborg, if there is one, can’t possibly last that long.”
I pretended to brush her comments away. “Thanks.” I pointed at her notebook. “Are you planning to apply to become a detective?”
“Someone will have to if Brent joins the DCI.” She quickly added, “I hope he doesn’t.”
“Me, too. Then you’d join the DCI and move away, too.”
“I like Fallingbrook and being near you and Samantha and our friends.”
“Like Scott.”
She agreed
. “Yeah, him, too. I don’t think he’s about to leave his family and friends, either. Besides, being Fallingbrook’s fire chief suits him.”
I glanced at her left hand. No ring. Yet.
Unlike the rest of us, Brent and Hooligan hadn’t lived in Fallingbrook most of their lives. I hoped both of them would stay and remain part of our close-knit group. Hooligan probably would, since he was marrying Samantha. But Brent? Could he resist a promotion plus a tall and gorgeous detective? Again, I thought, She’s too bossy and not kind enough for him. I told Misty, “Brent claims that you don’t want to be a detective.”
“I’ve been known to say that.” She stared at me intently. “I know that before Scott and I discovered each other, you thought Brent and I should be a couple. I like him, but he and I have never had a romantic interest in each other, even when Alec was alive. After Alec died, Brent dated for a while, but he seems to have stopped doing that. I don’t think he’s ever been seriously interested in anyone except you.”
“He’s not . . . that’s impossible.”
“Is it?”
“Definitely. And now that he’s met Detective Gartborg, it’s even more impossible. Besides, he just—” I shrugged. “He feels obligated to keep a protective eye on me, for Alec’s sake.”
“Did he ever say that?”
“No, but that’s how everyone who loved Alec treats me—Brent, Tom, Cindy . . .”
The doorbell rang.
I ran to the living room, let Samantha in, and gave her a big hug. “Excited?” I asked her.
She pulled away from me. Those dark brown eyes twinkled. “Very!”
Misty came in from the kitchen and also hugged her. “Nervous? Scared?”
Samantha pushed her away. “Scared? Of course not. But I can’t help being nervous that things won’t go quite right.”
In the kitchen, we poured glasses of wine and topped the flatbreads with brie and caramelized onion jam and discussed what to bring to the cabin the three of us were going to share.
Beyond a Reasonable Donut Page 17
