Two Sleuths Are Better Than One

by Elizabeth Ashby

  "Nothing that affects the market," Keely was quick to say as we set off to search the stalls for Andy. "Someone died in the guest cottage at the coach's estate a few days ago, and Dee thinks it might have repercussions for the local quilting community. The victim was a guy named Gabe Portillo. He was a billionaire with a well-known passion for collecting quilts. He'd even commissioned one from a Danger Cove guild member. So Dee asked me to look into the situation to make sure it wouldn't lead to a quilter being falsely charged with murder."

  "Investigating a murder doesn't seem to be part of a quilt appraiser's job."

  "It isn't," Keely said with a smile. "It certainly doesn't earn me any income. I think of it as pro bono work, like what I used to do for free when I was a lawyer. I don't mind helping the quilt guild, especially since I've become close to Dee and Emma, and I quickly learned it's a lot less time-consuming to do what they ask the first time they approach me, instead of waiting until they've tried to take care of the situation themselves and have just made it worse."

  "Still, investigating a murder is a lot to ask."

  "Not if I'm careful," Keely said. "I'll turn over whatever I learn to Lester Marshall. He's the detective in charge of the case."

  We reached the unoccupied stall that normally featured students in the high school's consumer sciences program. The teens had skipped this week's market so they could participate in the salsa contest's demonstrations. In their place, I'd set up a display of information on the market's new delivery service. Some of the materials had been taken, but the table didn't need replenishing from my sling bag yet.

  "Do you have any leads?" I asked.

  "Not really." Keely snagged one of the delivery brochures. "I'm hoping Coach Andy can help. The victim was a business acquaintance of his. I thought he might be able to tell me more about the man so I'd have an idea of who besides a quilter might have had a motive for murder."

  "You don't consider Coach Andy a suspect then?"

  "Seriously?" Keely laughed. "From what I'm told, Mother Teresa would be a more viable suspect than the coach is. And she died more than twenty years before the victim did, which seems like a pretty good alibi to me."

  "That's a relief," I said, peering through the crowd in front of the Danger Cove Dairy stall, in case our prey was somehow hidden behind the owner's large husband. "I was going solely by the mayor's recommendation when I invited Coach Andy to oversee the salsa contest. He seems nice enough, but I don't really know him."

  "If you've talked to him, you know him better than I do," Keely said. "I've only seen pictures. I've been looking for a big guy in a purple shirt. Emma told me Andy would be wearing the school's colors today."

  "He is."

  By then, we'd finished strolling up the left side of the market and down the right without catching sight of the hard-to-miss coach. As we approached the first aid tent where we'd started, I waved at my boyfriend, Merle, in the adjoining space. He had a line of five eager customers waiting to place their orders, so I didn't stop to chat with him. Instead, I continued beyond the first aid tent to look down the hill behind it to where the first salsa demonstration was supposed to have started by now. Apparently the first chef had decided to take matters into her own hands and had begun her presentation for a crowd of about twenty people. But still no sign of Andy Zielinski, close to half an hour after he'd been supposed to start the event.

  No sign of the Baxter twins either. I was starting to worry about where they might be. They'd been gone too long for a minor laceration, and while it was warm out, it wasn't brutally hot, so it seemed unlikely anyone could have become dangerously dehydrated this early in the day. Those were the two most common medical emergencies the EMTs handled. Could there have been some other more serious incident like a heart attack, and no one had thought to contact me? Officer Fred Fields usually worked the markets, serving as my liaison with the police department and using his community-policing skills to defuse any tension, but I hadn't seen him so far this morning.

  If someone had been hurt enough to require medical attention, but not quite enough to require an ambulance, the EMTs would have taken the victim into the first aid tent, but they would have left the flaps open for air circulation.

  Only then did it dawn on me that I hadn't thought to check inside it for Coach Andy. I couldn't imagine why he'd have gone inside, but it wasn't like the tent flaps were locked to keep people out. In fact, it was widely known that anyone feeling dehydrated or dizzy could go inside for some water or a lie-down on the cot.

  "It's a long shot," I told Keely as I reached for the right-hand flap, "but I wonder if Coach Andy nipped into the tent to get away from his adoring fans and lost track of time."

  Keely grabbed the left-hand flap. "It's worth a look."

  Inside, the space was a jumble. The Baxter twins were always impeccably organized, having the proverbial place for everything and everything in its place. Any equipment or supplies that were moved for use were immediately put away or replaced as soon as they were done with the patient so they could find whatever they needed in an emergency without conscious thought. Even Cary couldn't fault their organization.

  There was no way the EMTs had left the place looking like this. The cot had been tipped over, the wheelchair was upside down, and the three coolers were open with their contents spilled on the ground. Even the table in the back corner that served as my office, during the roughly five minutes a day when I wasn't needed elsewhere, had been pushed askew.

  A small patch of purple fabric caught my eye, barely visible beyond the overturned cot. Beside it was a dark damp spot that I had a feeling wasn't water.

  Keely must have seen it at the same time, because we both gasped in unison.

  "Call 9-1-1," I said, wanting to save Keely from what I was afraid was going to be a gruesome sight. I would have preferred not to look either, but we were on my turf, so to speak, and I was ultimately responsible for everything that happened on the market grounds. "I'll go see if he's still breathing. You don't need to stay if it's too much for you. You can make the call from outside the tent."

  CHAPTER TWO

  Keely Fairchild

  I desperately wanted to take Maria up on her suggestion that I step outside. There was a very real possibility that if I stayed, I would pass out. Still, staying inside the tent was the right thing to do.

  "It's better if we stick together so I can confirm that you didn't tamper with the scene." I took a deep, calming breath and stepped away from the doorway and farther into the tent, closer to the body, so I wouldn't create an obstacle for the first responders if I did end up crumpled on the floor, and then I called 9-1-1.

  My stomach had gone from mildly anxious when Maria had first said the coach was missing, to full-blown nausea and dizziness, signaling I was just moments from a syncope incident. I didn't like to talk about my tendency to faint when under stress. It had even taken me a long time to share my diagnosis with my boyfriend, Matt Viera, and my reluctance to be open with him had created a wedge between us for too long. The condition was more embarrassing than life-threatening, as long as I didn't pass out in the middle of the street or while driving a vehicle, which was why I no longer owned a car.

  I'd seen more than my fair share of dead bodies, and while I hadn't fainted right next to any of them, it was probably just a matter of time before it happened. I didn't want to have to explain it all to Maria, both for my own sake and for hers. She had enough to deal with right now.

  I took deep breaths in a desperate attempt to calm my nervous system enough that it would let me remain conscious. Watching Maria's efficient and unemotional actions helped too, and the nausea began to settle. She was almost as tall as me, and she exuded competence, from her short, fuss-free hair to her casual jeans and market-logo T-shirt.

  I managed to remain coherent while I spoke to the emergency dispatcher, so that was a point in my favor. By the time I hung up, Maria had confirmed that it was indeed Andy Zielinski on the ground beyond the c
ot, and that he was beyond any help that either we or the Baxter twins could give him.

  "Someone caved in his skull," she added as she joined me beside the entrance to the tent.

  I pulled one flap back so we could watch for the arrival of the first responders.

  We both fell silent, contemplating the latest tragedy in town. Just six days after Gabe Portillo had been killed. Even for Danger Cove, that was a lot of unnatural death for a single week. I had to wonder if the two murders could be related.

  Dee and Emma hadn't given me any reason to think Coach Andy might have had something to do with his guest's murder, but now that he'd died violently too, I had to consider it. What were the odds that a local man plus the man who'd been visiting him and who'd known hardly anyone else in town, would both be killed for unrelated reasons?

  I finally broke the silence. "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

  "That your murder and mine are related?" Maria asked. "How did your victim die?"

  "He was pushed off a second-story deck. Sort of surprising that he died, since it wasn't all that far to fall and he landed on grass, but he still managed to break his neck."

  "Maybe they're not connected then," Maria said. "Different locations, different causes of death. From what I could see, Coach Andy was beaten pretty badly in addition to what happened to his head. There were big red welts on his arms like he'd been hit with something like a baseball bat. Plus some purple bruises, but they looked like they'd happened a while ago and were already fading."

  "The old ones could have happened in a struggle with my victim last week. Maybe the forensics crew can establish whether the previous injuries happened the same day that Gabe died." It would take something that clear to convince Detective Marshall to consider the possibility that the two deaths were linked. He liked simple, straightforward theories that he could prove with a minimum of effort. In my experience, unless the killer was found with a literal smoking gun—or baseball bat in this case—the actual explanation of the crime was seldom simple or easy to prove.

  "It's just as likely the bruising happened during his coaching work," Maria said. "Football is a physical sport, and the mayor told me Coach Andy was known for hands-on training, putting himself on the field to show his students things he couldn't put into words. He could have been knocked around demonstrating something."

  I caught sight of the young police rookie, Richie Faria, running to intercept the Baxter twins coming from the direction of the beach, and all of them were hurrying toward us. If Faria was involved, that meant Detective Bud Ohlsen would likely be assigned to the case. He wouldn't appreciate witnesses comparing notes, at least not before he'd had a chance to interview Maria and me separately.

  "We'd better not discuss the crime scene any further until after the police are through with us," I said. "But I'd like to talk to you about it later, if you don't mind."

  "Sure." Maria glanced toward where the Baxter twins were just ten yards away. "Tonight, at the Smugglers' Tavern. Seven o'clock. I'll be bringing my boyfriend, Merle Curtis. He's a lawyer."

  "Then I'll bring Matt," I said. "He's a journalist. And my partner in crime-solving."

  Then the Baxter twins arrived and pushed us out of their way.

  *

  Richie Faria had insisted on separating Maria and me while we waited for Detective Bud Ohlsen. We'd been seated in separate police vehicles, but at least the doors were left open so we could catch a breeze and not feel too much like prisoners.

  Faria hadn't always separated witnesses in the past, and apparently he'd gotten a lecture from Ohlsen the last time it happened, so the rookie wasn't taking any chances with us. It was common knowledge that he desperately wanted to become a detective and was trying to make a name for himself as quickly as possible.

  When Ohlsen arrived, he went past the patrol cars where we were being held in order to commandeer the area immediately outside the lighthouse, separated from the market stalls by a set of steep steps, to use for his interviews. About fifteen minutes later, Faria came to escort Maria up to where a plywood table and two folding chairs borrowed from a vendor had been set up right outside the front door of the lighthouse.

  Maria's interview didn't take long, and I was escorted up to the cliff for my own turn in the hot seat half an hour later. There was usually a stiff breeze up at the peak of the cliff, and today was no different. Even on the warmest summer days, the wind could drop a person's body temperature in just a few minutes. I had to wonder if Ohlsen had intentionally planned his interview "room" to make the witnesses physically uncomfortable as well as emotionally off-kilter for the course of the interrogation.

  Either way, a little chill was better than being dragged down to the police station and left waiting there for hours, which would have happened if Lester Marshall had been assigned to the case. Maria was lucky to have a competent detective working to find Coach Andy's killer, while I had to work with Marshall, who in his effort to speed through a case, instead made everything twice as difficult as it needed to be.

  Ohlsen was a big man, tall, large-boned, and nearing retirement age. Every time I saw him, his hair seemed to have at least ten percent more white than before. He had a habit of leaning back on just two legs of a chair, with his hands clasped behind his head, while he mulled over a witness's comments. If he tried that today, while his chair was wobbly on the rocky ground even while all four legs were on the ground, he'd end up toppling for sure.

  I took a seat across from him and waited for him to finish the phone call that seemed to consist of a long-winded rant by the person on the other end. Coach Andy had been extremely popular, and word of his death had undoubtedly spread quickly. Ohlsen would be under a great deal of external pressure to solve the case as quickly as possible.

  Ohlsen finally was released from the call and put his phone down on the plywood surface. "So, what can you tell me about the crime scene?"

  "Not much, I'm afraid," I said. "I stayed in the doorway and only caught a glimpse of a purple shirt on the ground, and the blood, of course. I called 9-1-1 while Maria went to check on him, and then we both waited at the door to make sure no one else came into the tent."

  "What about the chaos inside the tent?"

  "It was like that when we arrived. It's what caused me to stop just inside the flaps instead of rushing in farther."

  "That's a first for you, not blundering all around a crime scene." Ohlsen placed his hands behind his head. He started to tip back, except the chair wobbled alarmingly, and he started before correcting his balance. He wisely settled for simply leaning against the back of the chair without raising the front feet off the ground. "But what I don't understand is what you were doing there in the first place. It makes sense why Maria was in the first aid tent. It's her market. But what were you doing there? You just happened to be unlucky enough to be among the first to find yet another body?"

  "I was looking for Coach Andy. I wanted to talk to him because of his connection with Gabe Portillo's death." Even though most of Ohlsen's gruffness was just a bluff, I hesitated before adding, "I can't help thinking it's possible someone else had the same idea, that Andy knew something about what happened to a guest who'd been murdered on his property and he was killed because of it."

  "Maria Dolores mentioned that too," Ohlsen said. "You two haven't been planning anything I should know about, have you?"

  "If there's anything you should know," I told him, "we'll definitely tell you."

  He narrowed his eyes at me skeptically. "Well, just for the record, it's too soon for me to develop any theories of the case. Especially since I don't know anything more than what was in the Cove Chronicles about Gabe's death. It's not my case." He gave me a halfhearted glare. "It's not yours either."

  "I'm more than happy to leave it to the professionals," I said with only partial honesty. As long as Lester Marshall was in charge of investigating Gabe's death, Dee and Emma would never trust the outcome of the official investigation. They'd risk their own s
afety to get answers if I couldn't convince them that justice had been served. I couldn't let that happen. "I just wanted to alert you to the possibility of a connection between the two cases."

  "Got it." Ohlsen glared at his vibrating phone but didn't answer it. "I'll have a chat with Lester so we can compare notes. That's all I can do without some hard evidence."

  "I understand."

  "I don't see why you're even interested in Gabe Portillo's death," he said, absently checking on yet another incoming call before letting it go to voice mail. "What's the quilt connection? According to the news, the victim was a friend of the coach, some billionaire who's been hobnobbing with the owners of his old team for years. Doesn't sound like anything Dee Madison would care about."

  "Dee isn't a sports fan as far as I know," I said. "But Gabe liked to spend some of his billions on expensive quilts for his collection. He'd commissioned a quilt from someone in the guild, and he was here to pick it up the weekend he died. Dee considered him part of their community, and you know how she gets about defending everyone in it."

  "Have you told Marshall about the quilt connection?"

  "Of course."

  Ohlsen grunted, and I knew I didn't need to explain that Marshall hadn't been willing to listen, insisting that unlike certain of his colleagues, he wasn't interested in any layperson's theories.

  "I'm sure you're going to mind your own business," Ohlsen said in a sarcastic tone, "but if you should just happen to come up with anything solid that ties Coach Andy's case to the other one, you've got my number."

  "Thanks."

  "For what?" Ohlsen said. "I'm just stating a fact, nothing more."

  "Still, I appreciate your keeping an open mind." He hadn't promised to do anything with the information, which would have involved stepping on a fellow detective's toes. But I also knew how to read between the lines of seemingly objective facts. Ohlsen would do the right thing. But I'd have to have solid evidence before he could stick his neck out.