Murder Casts a Shadow

by Donna Doyle

  It was cold in his Suburban, he knew, but to her credit, Carmela didn’t complain. Troy’s main concern was in choosing the right moment to appear. He’d need to turn his vehicle on, defrost the windshield and show up in the parking lot without wasting a second. This was to look like a drug bust; he knew that some of the cars would drive away in haste, but if he moved fast, they’d be able to nail Shaw.

  Rosa’s call had gone out to Mrs. Hammond an hour ago, and she’d called Troy immediately. He’d picked up Leo and Carmela and now they waited. There was a steady flow of cars arriving, but at no point were there so many that anyone would have remarked on the crowd. It didn’t seem like a smart place to transact their business, Troy thought, right out in the open the way they were. He wondered why they hadn’t just found another alley. Maybe the winter weather and the sudden shift in dealers after Scotty Stark’s imprisonment had left the drug network scrambling. Or maybe they figured that alleys were likely to be on the public radar after the revelations about what had been going on in Daffodil Alley.

  He’d warned Carmela that they were in for a cold night and she’d brought, at Troy’s suggestion, a thermos of coffee. It would have gratified Rosa, still watching from her window, to know that she was drinking the same beverage, in the same vessel, as the police officers.

  “No new cars in the last five minutes,” Leo reported, clearing away cold from his backseat window to view the action across the street.

  Troy started the car, backed it out of the driveway, and accelerated as he approached the parking lot. Several of the cars, noticing the Suburban’s arrival, peeled out of the parking lot, gravel flying as they left. The Cavalier was in a spot near the edge of the parking lot and Troy could see the driver’s head dart as he noticed the Suburban. Troy braked to a halt and he and Leo, weapons drawn, left their seats.

  “Police!” Troy yelled, getting to the car first and opening the door before the driver had a chance to put the car in motion.

  It wasn’t the smoothest drug bust Troy had ever been on, but then again, it wasn’t just a drug bust. Carmela was sitting in the front seat and he and Leo were relying on headlights, moonlight, and the parking lot lights to provide enough illumination for her to be able to view the driver of the Cavalier.

  “Get away,” the driver said when Troy told him to get out of the car. “You’ve got no cause to stop me.”

  “Can’t read your license plate,” Troy said succinctly. “Get out of the car, hands up.”

  Sullenly, the driver obeyed.

  To pat him down, Troy put him against the front of the Suburban so that Carmela could get a look at him. Leo went to check the contents of the Cavalier. His former son-in-law had not yet made the connection that the silent officer was his ex-father-in-law.

  “We’ll get the state guys out here to check this,” Leo said.

  The driver turned his head as if he’d heard something he wasn’t expecting.

  “I know people,” the driver said, a sneer audible in his voice. “You probably planted something back there to try to incriminate me.”

  Leo didn’t answer. He knew that Travis had no notion that they weren’t trying to pin the drug charge on him; they had something bigger in mind.

  Leo called the local state police, explaining that they had a suspect to bring in for questioning. No, he said, they didn’t need back-up, they needed a police vehicle. They’d gone unmarked for the drug operation.

  Then there was silence. The driver tried to initiate a belligerent conversation but neither Leo nor Troy rose to the bait. It didn’t take long before a state policeman arrived. Leo went over to the car and explained.

  Troy handed the keys to his Suburban to Leo and got into the state police car after Travis Shaw had been seated in the back. They had a surprise waiting for Travis back at the station, but its success depended on whether or not Carmela had seen his face.

  Troy wasn’t entirely sure that he trusted the local state police office, but when the officer called for the Cavalier to be impounded, Troy felt that maybe this officer, at least, wasn’t one of Chief Stark’s cronies. They waited in the car until the Cavalier was loaded onto the tow truck and taken away. After that, the state policeman went back to the Settler Springs police station.

  The Suburban was parked. Troy and the state police officer brought in Travis Shaw. Leo was waiting.

  Travis’ eyes narrowed. “What are you doing here?”

  “I want my daughter to see what a smart decision she made when she divorced you,” Leo answered.

  Mia emerged from the chief’s office. She stared at Travis wordlessly.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “You murdered Mrs. Knesbit,” she answered.

  The state policeman’s eyes widened. “What’s this about?” he demanded.

  “This is Travis Shaw,” Leo said. “My former son-in-law. Former guest of the state institute of correction for drug dealing. He was in Punxsutawney—his old stomping grounds—on Groundhog Day. That’s when he stole Lyola Knesbit’s purse and drowned her.”

  “There were thousands of people in Punxsy that day!” Travis yelled. “You can’t blame me for a murder the police can’t solve. I’m not going to have it pinned on me just because I just got out of prison.”

  But Carmela had recognized him. She told Leo that when he drove her home before returning to the police station to wait for Travis to be brought in.

  Travis sensed, from the expressions of the people in the police station, that he was low on options. “I want a lawyer.”

  Chapter Eighteen – Telling the Good News About the Bad Guy

  It was late, but Kelly wasn’t asleep yet when her phone rang. It was Troy.

  Despite her anger at him for not including her in the planning to catch Travis Shaw, Kelly never considered not answering. “Troy, are you okay?”

  “I’m fine. Better than fine. Travis Shaw is on his way back to prison.”

  “How did you do it?”

  Troy chuckled. “Your old ladies’ brigade again. Mrs. Hammond has a friend in the high-rise who was our sentry. She called when the cars started showing up in the lot. We waited with the lights off across the street until the number of cars arriving had slowed way down. Then we just drove in. Carmela stayed in the car to see if she recognized Travis as the guy who had Mrs. Knesbit’s purse. She did. Lucky it’s a clear night, and the moon is full. She got a clear look at him. We brought him back to the station and Mia Shaw was there. She confirmed that he was in Punxsutawney on Groundhog Day and that she saw him.”

  “That’s great news!” Kelly said. “But how did you get him to confess to the murder?”

  “He hasn’t done that yet. But he will.”

  “How are you so sure? Isn’t all the evidence circumstantial? What reason would he have for killing Lyola Knesbit?”

  “There’s more to this than a murder on Groundhog Day. I don’t know what it is, and I didn’t even try to bring Leo in to my way of thinking. But . . . my gut tells me there’s more to it.”

  “You mean that Chief Stark is part of this.”

  “I can’t prove it.”

  “Not yet.”

  Troy laughed. He should have known that Kelly would be emphatically confident that the good guys would eventually win, even though the bad guys seemed to hold the right cards.

  “Not yet,” he agreed. “But if Travis Shaw had Mrs. Knesbit’s purse, and Carmela is sure of that, and Mrs. Knesbit ended up drowned in the creek, it doesn’t take a whole lot of dot-connecting to figure that Shaw was involved. Now that he’s in custody, the labs might have more evidence to prove that he did it. Leo’s relieved that his daughter doesn’t have to be afraid because her ex-husband is threatening her, and Carmela is pleased that she was able to help.” He laughed again. “While she was waiting in my car, she wrote down all the license numbers that she could read as the cars were taking off. We’ll be hauling in a few more people from this night’s operation. Mrs. Hammond’s friend is going to be
very pleased.”

  “So will Mrs. Hammond; she’s planning to move into the high-rise as soon as there’s an opening.”

  “They’ll both be watching out the window. But I don’t think the drug selling will take place in the parking lot anymore. They’ll find a new place.”

  “It’s kind of strange that a murder isn’t the only piece of the puzzle. If I were Lyola Knesbit’s family, I’d be pretty upset.”

  “They will be. But someone will be punished for it.”

  “You sound pretty sure that he’ll be found guilty.”

  “I hope he will be,” Troy reverted to his cautious mode. “He’s an ex-con, Leo said there are definitely drugs in the car, he was seen in Punxsutawney by two witnesses.”

  “How could the Starks possibly fit into this? There’s still no explanation for why the bus money envelope was short. I know that isn’t going to be a point of defense or prosecution once this goes to trial, but it’s still an unanswered question.”

  Troy had a feeling there were a number of unanswered questions. Maybe the Starks were the answer. But tonight, Leo had shown that he was made of sterner stuff than Troy had previously seen. Protecting his daughter had made Leo more of a police chief and less Chief Stark’s obedient minion. Troy didn’t know what would happen, but even if Chief Stark got his job back, Leo would never be the same. He wasn’t ready to confront the Starks or Mayor Truvert, and he gave no indication that he thought a confrontation was necessary. But Troy didn’t think Leo would continue to ignore the town’s burgeoning drug problem, even if Chief Stark persisted in saying that there wasn’t a drug problem in Settler Springs.

  “We’ll see what comes out of the Shaw case, once it goes to trial,” Troy told her. “Then we’ll go from there. But now I’ve got something important to ask you.”

  “What’s that?” she said, alert to the tone of his voice.

  “Well, I want your advice about a good restaurant. A really good restaurant. A place where a guy would take a woman to show how much he appreciates her and how grateful he is for what she did to help.”

  “Who’s the guy?”

  “I’m the guy, of course. I’m asking your advice. What’s your thought?”

  “If she likes Italian, there’s Juniata’s, over on the bypass.” Troy could hear uncertainty in Kelly’s voice, as if she weren’t entirely sure how to respond.

  “I don’t know if she likes Italian.”

  “I like Italian, most people do.” Why was Troy asking her about taking someone to a restaurant? She didn’t know whether to be annoyed or to be coy. She wasn’t very good at being coy. But annoyed, well, that was a different matter entirely.

  “She might not.”

  It was another woman. He was asking her advice on where to take another woman.

  “Maybe you should just ask her!”

  Troy grinned over the phone. She was peeved, he could tell. It wasn’t a valentine, but at least he finally had some indication that she cared about him.

  “Maybe I should. Would you like to bring someone?”

  “What!”

  “Would you like to bring someone? We could sort of double date. Well, it’s not exactly a double date, but—Kelly? Kelly?”

  Kelly Armello had surrendered to her redheaded temperament and hung up on him. Smiling, Troy began to text.

  Thought it might be nice if we take Mrs. Hammond and Mrs. Dereskewicz out to a nice restaurant to thank them for helping us solve the murder. What do you say? For a minute there, I thought you had hung up on me.

  Kelly read his message and smiled. Why would I hang up on you? Taking them out to eat is a great idea. Since we’re multi-dating, why not take Carmela and Mia along too?

  Sounds like a good idea. Oh, and Kelly, could we try to have a nice, relaxing evening?

  Sure. I’ve given up murder for Lent.

  More From Donna Doyle!

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