“Katz,” the photographer said. “Steve Katz.”
“Regina Katz’s husband,” Gordon said.
“My condolences on your loss,” the chief said. “Perhaps we should speak in private.” He led the cameraman away, and my shoulders relaxed.
Gordon was frowning.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
He shook himself. “Nothing.” His brow wrinkled. “It does seem like someone wants to put Pie Hard out of business.”
“Not me.”
He lifted one eyebrow.
“Sorry,” I said. “I guess I’m a little sensitive on the topic. I wouldn’t mind if they stopped filming in Pie Town, but not this way.”
“Why?” he asked. “What happened today during filming?”
“Not much after you left. They stayed out of our way and just filmed.” I expected the other anvil to drop the next day, when Nigel talked to me about my finances. I swallowed, dreading that moment. Would it even come? Would this be the end of the Pie Hard filming? I didn’t see how they could continue. “One strange thing,” I said. “Ilsa Fueder never showed up for work today. Someone—I can’t remember whom—implied she hadn’t gotten word that filming would go ahead. But you’d think that would make her late, not absent all day.”
“I’ll talk to her. Why did you really come to the hotel tonight?”
I stared at him. “I really came to the hotel to talk to Frank. The man says he’s my father, but under the circumstances, it’s hard to believe.”
Gordon nodded. “Of all the pie shops in all the world, he had to walk into yours.”
“And now he’s the new Pie Hard producer? How does that even happen? Frank’s lying about something.” I folded my arms. “Possibly about everything.”
“Do you have any proof?”
“Twenty-plus years of history,” I said. Bitterness coated my tongue. “A leopard doesn’t change his spots.” I should know, since I never seemed to learn life’s hard lessons.
What was I thinking—going into that building like some movie damsel in distress? It wasn’t the first time I’d taken one too many chances, gotten myself into trouble. In fairness, usually Charlene led me right into trouble’s path.
As if summoned by a fickle genie, my piecrust maker hurried around the corner of the paramedic truck. She steadied Frederick, who was sprawled over the collar of her long, green, knit jacket. “So it’s true!”
Gordon’s lips pressed together. “Have you been listening to the police scanner again, Charlene?”
“That would be illegal,” she said. “How could you even think such a thing?”
Frederick yawned in agreement.
“News of the fire is all over the Internet,” she said. “And with the Pie Hard crew staying at the hotel, I had a feeling Val would be in the thick of things.”
“And why is that?” Chief Shaw asked from behind her, and she jumped.
“Chief Shaw.” She nodded. “Nice to see the SNPD is taking this fire seriously.”
He looked down his long nose at her. “And why did you think Val would be involved?”
“Not involved, exactly.” She shot me a wary look. “But I knew she was coming here to meet the producer.”
“Why exactly were you meeting him?” the chief asked.
The blood siphoned from my face, the words sticking in my throat. It was one thing for Charlene and Gordon to know about my maybe-father. Telling the rest of the world was a different story.
“He asked Val to meet him at the hotel,” Gordon said. “Charlene can verify that.”
She nodded. “Yep. He asked her right in front of me.”
“And again,” Chief Shaw said, “I ask why?”
“He says he’s my father,” I rasped. Blue and red lights flashed across their faces, and my stomach lurched.
“He says? You mean you don’t know your own . . .” A line of color washed across the chief’s cheeks. “I take it you two are estranged.”
“Yes,” I said.
“That complicates things,” Shaw said.
“It does for Val.” Charlene jammed her hands on her hips and squinted up at him. “I don’t see what it has to do with the fire.”
“Don’t you?” the chief asked. “And what exactly are you doing here, Mrs. McCree?”
“I heard there was a fire at the Belinda Hotel. Naturally, I came to make sure Val and the rest of the crew were all right.”
“Naturally.” He crossed his arms and stared down at me. “Is there anything else you’d like to add, Ms. Harris?”
I rubbed my throat. Maybe saying nothing was a good idea after all. “No,” I whispered. “I think I’ve told Detective Carmichael everything.”
The chief sighed heavily. “I was afraid it would come to this.”
I stiffened. “Come to what?”
“Come to Val nearly getting barbequed in a hotel room?” Charlene asked.
“Mr. Katz says you never really wanted Pie Town to be a part of this cooking show,” the chief said. “Is it true, Ms. Harris?”
“Well,” I said, “not exactly, and Pie Hard’s more a baking than cooking show, but—”
Gordon cleared his throat in warning.
“But this show will be terrific publicity for Pie Town and San Nicholas,” Charlene said.
Shaw shook his head. “Murder and arson not so much.”
“So Regina Katz was murdered,” Charlene said. “Ray was right. It wasn’t an accident. I knew it!”
“Ray?” Shaw asked.
“He was the man who found the body,” Gordon said.
“Right,” the chief said. “The young man who happens to be a good friend of Pie Town and Ms. Harris.”
Charlene’s snowy brows drew downward. “What are you saying?”
The chief blew out his breath. “Valentine Harris, you’ll need to come to the station for questioning.”
I swallowed my panic. To the station for questioning? The chief couldn’t possibly think . . .
It didn’t matter. It was only a few questions. Gordon would figure things out. I could trust him.
Gordon stepped forward. “Sir, I’ll—”
“You’ll do nothing, Carmichael,” the chief said. “You’ve lost your objectivity, and we’re going to have a little talk about your performance with Mr. Katz. As of now, you’re off the case.”
CHAPTER 9
Exhausted and stinking of smoke, I stumbled from the station into fog and darkness. Even Chief Shaw admitted I had a cast-iron alibi for Regina Katz’s death. He kept picking at my connection to Frank and the crew, why I was in that building, how the fire had started.
I gripped my purse, slung it over my shoulder, and scanned the fogbound street for Charlene’s Jeep. She’d be eager for an update, and I needed a ride. My van was still at the hotel.
A tall, muscular silhouette separated from a light pole.
I took a quick step backward, stumbling.
“Val?” Gordon asked.
Relaxing, I trotted down the brick steps. “You’re here. I thought . . .” I thought he was off the case, and guilt gnawed my gut. I could guess how much that bothered him.
“I’m off duty.” Amber light from the street lamp made crags of his face.
“Not permanently?!”
“No,” he said, “but Katz claimed I pushed him, and—”
“You didn’t! I was right there.”
“It’s all right.”
“Are you in trouble?”
“Let me give you a lift home,” he said, his voice flat.
My heart sank. He didn’t want to talk about it, but he was here, and that had to mean something. “Thanks,” I said. “My van’s parked at the hotel. Can you take me there?”
“Sure.”
I followed him to his sedan, got inside and sneaked a peek of myself in the side mirror. I looked like a frumpty dumpty. My hair was matted, and my clothes were dingy with smoke. Embarrassed, I looked in my purse for a hair band.
He started the car.
“How did it go with Shaw?”
I found a band, which was sticky for reasons I didn’t want to investigate. “He couldn’t get around my alibi for Regina’s death.” I looped the band around my loose hair.
Gordon’s mouth quirked. “No, half a dozen goddess gals plus Charlene are hard to argue with. It’s a good thing they were at your house when Regina fell off that cliff. What’s the story with the goddesses anyway?” He pulled from the curb.
“I’m not sure. I think it’s mainly a getaway for them, and my bluff is a good spot for dancing around the fire.”
“Mm hm.”
“Or so they say.” I hadn’t tried any clifftop cavorting myself.
We drove in silence for a time, and then he asked, “Why do you think someone locked you in that room tonight?” He turned onto Highway One. Traffic was light at this hour. We zipped past fog-shrouded Eucalyptus trees and a British pub with a red call box outside.
“I have no idea. I must have been in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“You weren’t investigating, were you?”
I looked away, out the window. “No. I was really there to meet Frank.” I wasn’t sure I wanted to have the big “are you my daddy” talk. So I’d invented a secondary motive for meeting with him—to find out what he knew about the Pie Hard crew. I only hoped he was a witness and not a suspect. My father might be a jerk, but I didn’t want him to be a murderer. I gnawed my bottom lip.
“What’s wrong?”
“Frank.”
“I haven’t had a chance to get anything on his background. It looks like I’ll have plenty of time now,” he said darkly.
I winced. “Are you really off the case?”
“It’s no big deal.”
“Yes, it is.” It was my fault. No wonder our love life had been DOA. I was a career killer for police detectives.
“The chief had to pull me off due to our relationship.”
“What relationship?” I asked, exasperated. “We don’t have a relationship.” We’d never even completed a real date. Police business always interrupted our time together, and then Gordon went to that training in Wyoming.
His expression became a careful blank. “That’s not how the chief sees it.”
An awkward quiet fell. Maybe I was too insistent about us not having a relationship, but I couldn’t take back my words. I’d wanted to have a relationship with Gordon. I didn’t know how to tell him that either.
The silence stayed locked in place as we turned into the hotel parking lot and coasted to a stop behind my pink van. Lights from the Belinda gleamed, a golden fairyland at night. But this fairytale was dark, with a plot that included murder and arson.
I cleared my throat. It still burned, even hours after the fire. “Gordon—”
“I’ll wait to make sure everything’s okay.”
“Earlier, when I said we didn’t have a relationship, I just meant we never really even finished that first date.”
“I know.”
Now was the perfect time for him to correct that deficiency and ask me out.
Except he didn’t.
I stretched my mouth into a smile. “Okay. Well, thanks for the ride.” Suddenly anxious to escape his unsettling presence, I stepped from the sedan. Feeling his eyes on me, I hurried to my van, got inside, and turned the ignition. It wheezed, sputtered, and died.
Frowning, I tried again.
The van coughed and gave a final wheeze.
Gordon emerged from his sedan and came to stand beside my door.
I rolled down the window. “It’s not starting.”
He leaned inside. “Any idea what’s wrong?”
I glanced at the dashboard. “No, I . . .”
“What?”
I tapped the fuel gauge. “I’m out of gas. But I swear I . . .”
His brow arched.
My hands tensed in my lap. “I shouldn’t be out of gas,” I babbled. “I had an eighth of a tank when I drove here.”
“An eighth?”
“Well, yeah. Approximately.”
“Approximately?”
Tingling swept my cheeks, and I rubbed the back of my neck. Had I screwed up? I’d never run out of gas before, but I’d been discombobulated by Frank’s arrival and Pie Hard and murder.
Gordon walked to the gas tank and opened the lid, unscrewed the top. He sniffed and studied it for a long moment.
“What?” I asked. “What’s wrong?
He shook his head. “Nothing. There’s a station not far from here. I’ve got a gas can in the trunk. I’ll buy you a gallon. Stay here and lock the doors.”
“Wait.” I dug through my purse for my wallet, trying to make out the bills in the darkness. I flourished a fiver. “Here . . .”
I looked around.
His car was gone.
I pulled my hood further over my head and slouched low in the seat. What was wrong with me?
A phantom of fog swirled past my window.
Paranoid, I rolled it up and locked the doors. Then I flipped on the overhead lights and twisted in my seat to check the rear of the van. No one lurked beside the metal pie racks.
I readjusted myself and stared blankly through the windshield. Maybe I should be upfront and ask him out? On the other hand, would asking him exacerbate the blow of the chief removing him from the case? He was San Nicholas’s only homicide detective. This was the second time that Chief Shaw had yanked a case so he could “solve” it himself.
Would Shaw try to do it himself again? Or would he bring in another investigator?
Why was Gordon staring at my gas tank? Did he expect to find some blockage? Because even I knew that didn’t make sense. Or . . .
I sucked in my breath.
The tank did not have a lock. Someone must have siphoned my gas. San Nicholas never had a problem with gas thieves. I certainly didn’t expect that sort of thing in the parking lot of a fancy hotel like the Belinda, but . . .
I’d smelled gasoline in that room before it went up in flames. Had the gasoline come from my own van? The thought sent a shiver up my spine. Had I been targeted?
A gust of wind buffeted the van, swirled the fog, and made eerie specters of the mist. My scalp prickled.
Okay, question one. Assuming the arsonist had siphoned my gas, was it a coincidence he’d taken it from my van? I didn’t think so. Which meant . . . Had I been followed? I didn’t see anyone following me, but I wasn’t looking for a tail either.
Someone banged on my door, and I shrieked. I jumped in my seat and slammed my knee into the wheel. A blinding light shone in my face.
“What are you doing here?” a man’s voice snarled.
Because I know better than to roll down a window for a stranger, I cracked it and raised my face toward the opening. “I’m waiting for a friend. He’s a cop,” I added, shielding my eyes with one hand.
He lowered his flashlight and chuckled.
I blinked. Graham, wearing a green security jacket that stretched across his belly, stood grinning beside my door.
I laughed shakily and rolled the window down all the way. “What are you doing here?”
“I work here.” He adjusted his flat, taxi-driver’s cap.
“I thought you were retired.”
“I am. Just thought I’d keep my hand in, pick up some extra spending money.”
“Is Wally here?” I asked.
“In a manner of speaking. He followed that ninja kid and wound up in the hotel bar. I think he’s settled in there for the night.”
“Oh, no.” I didn’t like the thought of these two playing detective. That made me a ginormous hypocrite as I was doing exactly the same thing. “You don’t have to follow anyone for me.”
“It beats cribbage. Wally cheats.”
Gordon’s sedan glided into the empty spot on my passenger side. He emerged carrying a red, plastic gas can and walked around the front of my van. “Hi, Graham. Everything all right?”
“Some idiots set three-b on fire,” he
said, “but I wasn’t on guard duty at the time, so it’s not my problem.”
Rats. That meant he wouldn’t have noticed anyone siphoning gas from my van.
Gordon poured gas into my tank.
“Don’t tell me you ran dry?” Graham asked.
“It looks that way,” I said, vague.
He tsked. “You’re lucky it happened here and not on a deserted roadside. You girls need to be more careful.”
I lowered my chin. “We girls?”
“You and Charlene.”
Charlene would be thrilled to hear she still landed in the “girl” category. “Right.” We chatted some more, and the older man ambled off, leaving the detective and me alone.
I slid from the van. “Gordon . . .”
He flipped shut the lid to my tank. “All done.”
“I’m really sorry about you getting pulled from the case.”
“It’s not your fault.”
It didn’t sound like he believed it.
* * *
I drove home through sable hills—my headlights making little headway in the thickening fog. To cheer myself up, I flipped on the radio and settled on a jazzy song that had me bopping in my seat, until I actually listened to the lyrics and realized it was “Upside Down.” That seemed depressingly appropriate, and I twisted the dial to off.
I turned up the narrow track toward my house and winced as branches whacked the side of my van. Was someone targeting me specifically, or had I just gotten caught in the Pie Hard black hole of doom? More importantly, would Gordon forgive me for getting him booted from the case?
Charlene’s yellow Jeep was parked beside my tiny house. A white Ford Escort sat beside it. The goddesses weren’t around. The ladies were probably sleeping in the yurt, and Charlene was probably hanging out in my kitchen. The Escort must belong to one of them.
I stepped outside and hurried to my glorified shipping container. It was nearly midnight, and though the fog wasn’t as thick at my hillside perch, the stars were invisible. I climbed the two short steps and opened the door.
“Hey,” a man’s voice said.
I gasped, clutching my chest.
Ray sat hunched like a circus bear at my small table. His red hair was rumpled, his round, freckled face pale. His brown windbreaker was unzipped over his band t-shirt and saggy jeans.
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