Two Sleuths Are Better Than One

by Elizabeth Ashby

  That was really saying something. The mayor seemed to have an infinite and nimble memory for faces and names, as well as the key elements of their backgrounds and expertise. "You never tried to add her to one of the town's committees or charitable organization boards? I thought sports wives were into that sort of thing."

  "I did ask Coach Andy once, shortly after he moved back here, about whether there was some cause she cared about, so I could introduce her to others with the same interest." Kallakala shifted the box of flyers from under one arm to the other. They were heavier than they looked, as I knew from carrying them from the parking lot. "He said she already had too much to do with her time, but he'd let me know if that changed."

  "Did he say what she was busy with?"

  Kallakala shook his head. "I thought he was just saving face, covering for her total lack of interest in the town, so I didn't push for more answers. Coach Andy was already doing more for the citizens of the town than a dozen other people, so if his wife wanted to keep a low profile, I couldn't complain."

  "She told me she owned her own business, and I gathered it involved a lot of travel."

  Kallakala shrugged. "Maybe I was wrong and she really was busy. It's just that I know their landscaper, and he tries to work when no one's home so as not to bother them with his loud equipment, and there was never a time that he could find when her car wasn't there."

  "All I know for sure is that she claims to have been out of town on business when her husband died. If Detective Ohlsen can confirm her alibi, then I can't see a quick end to this investigation."

  "Me neither," Kallakala said glumly. "At least Lester Marshall is getting close to closing the investigation into Gabe's death. It's bad enough for the town to have one unresolved murder, but two is exponentially worse."

  Keely and I had agreed that I would concentrate on Andy's killer while she looked into Gabe's, but it sounded like her case had all but been solved. If so, she'd want to know that Marshall was closing in on a prime suspect. And so did I, since it still seemed likely to me that both deaths were related somehow, even if Keely wasn't entirely convinced.

  "Is Marshall ready to make an arrest?"

  "That's what he told me this morning," Kallakala said. "He's just wrapping up some loose ends before he sets up a press conference for as soon as the culprit's taken into custody."

  "From what I've heard, Marshall had plenty of suspects, unlike Ohlsen."

  The mayor nodded. "I love knowing our town is so welcoming to visitors, but it always seems like they bring trouble to town."

  It wasn't my case, but Keely might want to know Marshall's theory of the murder, and as long as I was at a dead end with my own investigation, maybe I could help her out. Then if her case was solved, I might be able to get her to help find a solid suspect for Coach Andy's death. Although she didn't seem to be as easy to assign chores to as my siblings had been.

  "You think Gabe's killer followed him to Danger Cove?" I asked.

  "I don't know for sure, but I'd like to think so," Kallakala said. "It's hard to imagine any of the nice people living in the friendliest town of the Pacific Northwest could commit murder. But ultimately, I have to leave it to the professionals to figure it out. And then a jury."

  "If the killer followed Gabe here, does that mean his wife is a suspect?"

  "Marshall didn't say, but I've met Georgia Portillo, and I can't believe she would hurt anyone. Kindest, most centered woman you'd ever met. I can't imagine her losing her temper and getting violent. Plus, she'd never do anything to harm her kids."

  "And killing their father definitely wouldn't be good for them."

  "Exactly." Kallakala swapped the flyers again from one arm to the other. "But beyond that, there are plenty of people who are more likely suspects. Pretty much anyone who's ever dealt with Gabe came to dislike him."

  "Except Coach Andy," I said. "After all, he invited Gabe to stay in his guest cottage."

  "Andy wouldn't kill anyone, even if he hated them," Kallakala said. "But letting Gabe stay in his cottage didn't mean they were friends. The coach couldn't say no to anyone, and Gabe was always asking for freebies. Even asked me for the use of the town's audio-visual equipment so he could record his presentation for the quilt guild. Wanted to make it part of his quilt collection, documenting the acquisition. He seemed shocked when I said no, but it only took a moment before he went on the attack. He said something about how Danger Cove wasn't living up to its reputation for friendliness, at least when it came to businesses. I might have reconsidered if I hadn't known that the guild was paying him a generous flat fee for his travel and lodgings, even though he had a free place to stay, so he was making a profit on the trip."

  Keely wasn't going to be happy to hear that. If Gabe had been taking unfair advantage of the guild and someone had found out, that person might have had a reason to confront him at the cottage, perhaps to demand reimbursement of the expenses that hadn't actually been incurred.

  "Considering what a jerk Gabe seems to have been, I'm surprised Marshall can narrow down the suspects in his murder to just one person."

  "I'm sure it wasn't easy," Kallakala said. "Just the number of people Gabe stiffed is considerable."

  "He didn't pay his bills?" Keely was definitely going to want to know about that. "Even though the guild was paying his expenses?"

  "Apparently not. After his first visit here to arrange the quilt commission, I got complaints from a number of small business owners he owed money to. I looked into it, talked to some friends in Seattle, and it turns out that Gabe had a reputation for leaving a trail of unpaid bills behind him wherever he goes, even though he's purportedly worth millions. He never pays for anything he thinks he can get for free."

  I knew the type from stories told around the bar during financial planning conferences. "Unfortunately, that's how a lot of rich people get rich and stay rich: by using other people's money, whether the other person agrees or not."

  "His wife, bless her, is just the opposite," Kallakala said. "She made a nice donation to my discretionary fund after Gabe's first visit here. I made sure everyone who'd been stiffed was paid, and there was still enough left over to contribute to the historical museum, as a way of ensuring that the meeting room will continue to be available for the quilt guild and other local groups. It was like someone had told Georgia what a jerk her husband had been while he was here. Maybe Andy or his wife."

  Or perhaps, I thought, she did the same thing after every trip Gabe made, assuming there would be damage to repair. "Has she made a donation this week?"

  Kallakala nodded. "She did. A substantial contribution to the high school boosters club to be used on sports equipment, in honor of Andy. Can you imagine, with all that she must be dealing with, she still thought to make such a kind gesture?"

  I'd become a bit jaded about human behavior after my past experiences with killers, so I couldn't help thinking there was another explanation for the widow's gesture. It could have been easy for her to think of others, not because she was such a kind person but because she wasn't at all distracted by grief and instead was glad her husband was dead.

  I couldn't know for sure though, since I hadn't had the chance to observe her myself to see firsthand how she'd been coping with his death. Looking into the widow's role in her husband's death, if any, wasn't my part of the investigation, so rather than asking any more questions about Georgia, I dropped the topic. I could still let Keely know about the donation and Marshall's belief that he was on the verge of an arrest. Investigating Gabe's murder wasn't my responsibility, and I didn't want to step on Keely's toes the way I'd often done with my siblings when we were younger. It had taken me a long time to learn that I shouldn't jump in and do things for them that they could and should do for themselves. Still, I had to fight the urge to do everything myself. I was sure Keely would follow up on the information, and I had agreed to the division of labor, but I hated sitting back and not acting on the lead, especially while I had no solid suspect
s for Coach Andy's killer. Someone at the market had to know something, and I'd just have to keep asking if anyone had seen anything out of the ordinary the morning he was killed.

  *

  When the Gino's Pizza chef began a final summary of his advice on cooked salsas, Mayor Kallakala went over to set his box of flyers on the ground beneath the table. Once the demonstration was over, he took the mic and announced a five-minute break before the next speaker—Tommy Fordham, with tips on choosing the right tomato variety and then cutting it into even chunks—would begin.

  Much of the crowd hurried off to do some quick shopping during the break, although one person almost militantly stood his ground in a prime spot just a couple of feet in front of the table where Tommy was already lining up a sampling of his tomatoes. Much farther back, on what would have been the very edge of the crowd before it dissipated, Cassidi Conti, the owner of The Clip and Sip, was typing into her phone. She looked like the Texas stereotype, blonde and blue-eyed, but without the big hair.

  The Clip and Sip was the center of a good deal of town gossip, so I went over to see if she'd heard anything about who might have wanted Andy Zielinski dead.

  Cassidi looked away from her phone and toward my fingernails. "Your nail polish is really holding up, Maria."

  "Of course. I wouldn't let anything happen to work from The Clip and Sip."

  "Not intentionally," she said, "but I know what it's like when your work is affected by a murder. I would be picking at my polish, but you seem so calm."

  "Only on the outside."

  Cassidi's attention was caught by something to my right. I followed her gaze to see Jack Condor, who'd claimed he couldn't be at the market today, taking up a spot next to the other person who was determined to have the best line of sight for the next demonstration.

  Cassidi shook her head. "Can you believe he's entering the contest? If he cooks as well as he builds apartment complexes, you'd better hope the judges don't get food poisoning."

  That was about the only crisis I hadn't had to face in my almost-two-seasons as the market manager, despite its being a risk I'd actually been prepared for, unlike the assorted natural disasters, assaults, and murders that I'd been confronted with.

  "I prefer to put my faith in preparation rather than in hope." I patted my sling bag. "I've got some sample sizes of Pepto-Bismol in here, and there's plenty of supplies for rehydration in the first aid tent."

  "I suppose it won't go that far. It's more likely Condor's entry will simply be inedible," Cassidi said. "Judging by the beginner questions he asked yesterday, he's never made salsa before, and it takes years and lots of critics to perfect a recipe. And those critics need to be skilled themselves, which is why they need to be from Texas, where salsa and tortilla chips is the official state snack."

  I wondered if Cassidi was one of the people Mayor Kallakala had been referring to as being passionate about the contest. The previous weekend, I'd caught Cassidi and Meri Sinclair, the owner of Dangerous Reads and another self-proclaimed expert in making salsa, studying Tommy's tomatoes and trash-talking each other's understanding of what went into the perfect salsa. Their competition was good-natured and wouldn't cause any problems, but I had to watch out for others who might take things too far.

  "If you've already got your recipe," I asked, "why are you taking notes from the demonstration?"

  "Oh, I wasn't writing down the advice from the Gino's chef. Not that he isn't great, but no one can make a traditional salsa that's better than mine. It's in my blood, being from Texas and all. But you never know whether the competition might be engaged in sneaky tricks, so I like to keep an eye on the other entrants, make sure they're not bribing the judges or anything."

  "I can't imagine anyone would cheat," I said. "Not when the top prize isn't worth more than fifty bucks."

  "Plus getting the recipe in Elizabeth Ashby's next book. A lot of people think that's a bigger prize than money," Cassidi said. "And some people will cheat just because they can. Not Meri, of course, but others might. Jack Condor certainly would. He's probably looking into who he can bribe."

  "You can't think the judges would help him cheat," I said.

  "Coach Andy wouldn't have. He would have been completely fair, and no one would have even tried anything underhanded with him." Cassidi glanced toward where the mayor and my assistant, Cary, were helping Tommy set up. "And I like Mayor Kallakala, but he is a politician after all. I don't know if he'd take a bribe, but everyone is susceptible to blackmail."

  "The mayor has always been fair with me," I said. "He made good on his promises to me last year even when he was getting pressure to fire me."

  "Still, I trusted Coach Andy more than the mayor," Cassidi said. "He was a true salsa aficionado."

  "You knew him?" Her personal experience with the man might be more valuable than any salon gossip.

  "Oh, yes," Cassidi said. "In fact, I might have had a bit of an unfair advantage with Coach Andy as the judge. He'd tasted my salsa before and declared it to be perfect."

  "When was that?"

  "I don't recall exactly," Cassidi said. "Some fundraiser for the high school sports teams. The Clip and Sip sponsors the uniforms for the football cheer team. Gia tried to Jersify them with some leopard-print briefs, but we explained that only school colors are allowed. And I've always been a football fan. I can totally talk strategy, so the coach and I bonded over that. We've had some great, only mildly heated conversations about my love of the Dallas Cowboys."

  "What about Andy's wife?" I asked. "Did you ever meet her?"

  "Not at social events," Cassidi said, "but she came to The Clip and Sip every four weeks, like clockwork. Appearances are so important for a woman in business. Might not be fair, but it's true. I was always pleased that she trusted us to do her hair instead of insisting on some high-priced salon in Seattle."

  "Did she say anything about being out of town for business this past week?"

  "You want to know if she had an alibi for her husband's murder?" Cassidi asked approvingly. "It's what I'd want to know if someone died on my turf."

  I nodded. "No one else seems to have had any reason to kill Coach Andy, so I've got to wonder about her."

  "I can't say for sure where she was on Saturday morning," Cassidi said, "but she did call on Tuesday to cancel her Friday appointment and ask if she could be squeezed in for an extra appointment that evening. Said she had a huge deal on the line, and they'd just arranged for two days of meetings in London, starting first thing on Thursday morning. I remember she laughed about expecting to look like a hag when she got home, after taking the red-eye back to Seattle overnight Friday, but I don't know exactly when she expected to get back here."

  I'd seen her arrive at the farmers' market around noon, but I had no way of knowing for sure where she'd been before that. She could have been bleary-eyedly driving from the airport in Seattle, or she could have been at home, hiding from the police after killing her husband.

  "Things could have changed so she left London earlier than expected," I said. "Or she could have lied about the whole thing to set up an alibi."

  "You think she might have been planning murder that far ahead?" Cassidi shook her head. "That doesn't sound like her. Oh, sure, she's organized and plans things in advance, despite the last-minute change to her hair appointment. But for it to be premeditated, she'd have to be a psychopath. I don't know her well—I'm not sure anyone here does, and that has led to some misunderstandings—but I don't think she's a bad person."

  "What kind of misunderstandings?"

  "Nothing violent," Cassidi said. "She's just a very private person, which is particularly noticeable when contrasted with her very public and gregarious husband. People assume that she's cold or standoffish, when she just needs a little privacy. She's always been kind to the staff at The Clip & Sip, remembering them with truly thoughtful little gifts at Christmas. She knows who likes alcohol and whether it's wine or something stronger and who prefers chocolates or other swe
ets."

  "If Eileen didn't kill the coach, then who do you think did it?"

  "No one I've ever talked to," Cassidi said. "Coach Andy was the sweetest, most standup guy I've ever met. He was wrong to think the Texas Longhorns won't be up to their usual standard this fall, but even I wouldn't kill him for his views on college football."

  If Cassidi was right, I had now narrowed down the suspect pool from "hardly any" to "none at all."

  How on earth could a murder be solved without any likely suspects at all? If everyone who knew him was excluded from consideration, then the killer had to be random, someone who didn't even know him. But if they didn't know Andy, then why kill him? It would be crazy to take on a big guy like him for no reason at all. Which meant that, based on what I knew so far, the most likely suspect for his murder was someone who was both a nonresident of Danger Cove and insane.

  Yeah, that was helpful. Perhaps Keely was having better luck with her investigation, possibly even uncovering a lead for me to pursue if I was right that the two cases were connected.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Keely Fairchild

  I wandered up the Memorial Walkway, visiting stalls and adding pears, peppers, and red onions to my tomato purchases until I had to stop and buy a Lighthouse Market canvas tote to carry everything in. By then, an hour had passed since I'd talked to Emma, so I returned to the quilting bee, where I hoped to ask Zoe Costa about the commission she'd done for Gabe.

  All of the seats around the quilt frame were occupied with diligent workers, which had freed Emma and Dee to take a brief break. They were sipping from flasks—I really didn't want to know what was in them—while perching on a pair of mesh folding chairs in the shade of a tree about halfway between the parking lot and the spot where the guild was working. In the past, I'd seen the Second Chance Animal Shelter set up there, but they hadn't come today, perhaps because of the last-minute rescheduling of the market hours.