by Dana Marton
“He got me a used one, supposedly from Goodwill. I cleaned it up, decorated it with stickers, made it mine. I didn’t care that it wasn’t new. I loved that bike. He wasn’t the type to give me rides, so the bike meant I could get to places.”
“How does Brittany come into this?”
“She saw it and recognized it. It had been hers. She’d thrown the stupid bike out when she got a nicer one. My father picked it up at the town dump. Brittany told everyone at school. I was called Dumpster Girl for a year.”
Harper frowned. “I don’t remember that.”
“You were already in high school.”
She recounted the story without showing emotion, but the old humiliation bubbled up inside. “You know, for the most part, I didn’t care that everyone had more money than we did. But every once in a while, I desperately wanted to be like the other kids, to be able to afford that school trip or shoes that were popular.”
“Or a bike,” Harper said. He didn’t comment further on the story, but she thought his jaw was clenched, like he was angry. On her behalf? She doubted it.
“Is Shannon okay with me going back to the B and B?” she asked him as they walked out. “She’s not scared I’ll murder her in her sleep?”
“She’s a tough cookie.” He headed around the building instead of toward the cruiser that he’d left in the front parking lot. “My pickup is in the back,” he said. “Shannon believes in innocent until proven guilty. She says she saw what you were made of back when your father did gardening for the B and B, and showed up drunk more often than not. You would come and do the work.” He paused. ”I would have done it, if you’d told me. I cared about you.”
The words hung in the air between them. She didn’t want to have an emotional reaction, but she did. She clamped down on that real fast.
So what if he’d cared about her once? Ten years had passed since. None of that mattered now. Right at that moment, the thing that most mattered was that she was out of jail.
She was free. She could leave.
“I have a Martha Washington performance in Philly at the end of the week,” she told him as they stopped by his truck. “And then Betsy Ross in Harrisburg, three days after that.”
“You’re not going to make it.” Harper unlocked the doors. “Your bail is conditional on you staying in town. And your car is still impounded as evidence.”
Allie wanted to rail at him, but couldn’t find the necessary steam. He’d found her a lawyer. And he’d had his brother pay her bail.
She got into the truck. “Let’s just go.” She wanted a hot bath, wanted to sit in steaming water and scrub the feel of jail off her skin. “Do you know where my suitcases are?”
“Also in evidence.” Harper started the engine. “But I’m almost done going through everything.”
Frustration made her bristle at last. She wanted clean clothes. “How can it take this long?”
“I’ve been working on other stuff.”
Like having her charges reduced. Which made it so much more difficult to keep on hating him, dammit. Especially when he handed her phone back.
“Who is your favorite character to play?” he asked as he pulled out of the parking lot.
“Calamity Jane. I like swaggering. And for certain audiences, I even get to swear on stage.”
The corner of his lips twisted. “Least favorite?”
“Betsy Ross. I have to sew while I talk, and I usually stab my fingers bloody with the needle.”
Harper remained silent for a while. Then he said, without turning to her, “I wish we’d met again under different circumstances.”
And how was she supposed to react to that? Allie thought as she stared at him.
Chapter Eleven
“How well did you know Old Man Lamm?” Harper asked his father as his plate was put in front of him Wednesday morning, a full Irish breakfast straight from the Old Country: pork sausages, bacon, fried eggs, a couple of slices of fried tomatoes, toast, and more.
“Black pudding and white pudding, both?” Harper looked at his mother, thinking this was the exact reason he didn’t pop over for breakfast every day. He’d never burn off the calories. Most police work was admin work these days.
“Store-bought,” Rose said in a tone of confessing a crime, tucking a loose lock of long red hair behind her ear. “You know how hard it is to get fresh pig blood.”
“Don’t worry about it, Mom.” He took a big bite to prove it. “It’s a feast.”
Rose waved off the compliment. “Your grandmother is rolling in her grave.”
When she bustled back to the stove, Harper looked after her. That had to be the shortest complaint ever about the tragic unavailability of black pudding ingredients at the average American grocery store. She was clearly preoccupied. He was afraid he knew by what, and steeled himself for a tirade about Allie.
But instead of some very pointed words, when his mother brought two more slices of toast to the table, she exchanged a quick smile with his father.
What’s that about?
Harper opened his mouth to ask when he noticed that his father’s green plaid shirt wasn’t buttoned right. One button was without a buttonhole on top. He almost remarked on that when his brain finally put two and two together.
Some detective.
Holy crap.
Had he interrupted his parents when he’d walked in earlier?
In the kitchen??
Maybe he was wrong about what was preoccupying his mother. Oh God, don’t think about it.
Harper cleared his throat. He couldn’t look his father in the eye as he asked, “So, Old Man Lamm?”
“A crying shame, that man’s death.” Sean Finnegan, tall and wide shouldered, sat somberly at the head of the table like a chieftain of old, his full head of hair barely graying, the only lines on his face drawn by the laughter of years passed. “Well, any man’s death, but Lamm especially. Wouldn’t hurt a fly. Kept to himself. Never did one bad thing to anyone.”
“Do you know if he had money? Like big money. Family money.”
“Blue-collar family. Most of the men worked at the paper mill, and the women stayed at home.”
“Who would you say was his closest friend?”
Sean Finnegan thought about that while he ate his black pudding with a hearty appetite. “The men he went to war with. He used to hang out at the VFW Hall with your grandfather. Stopped a little while back.”
“What’s a little while?”
“Around when we did that big renovation at the bar. About the same time your grandfather died.”
“Twenty years ago?”
Sean Finnegan raised his head, mild shock on his face. “Has it been that?”
“It has,” Harper’s mother put in from the kitchen, smiling, thinking about God knew what—not the VFW Hall, for sure.
“Why do you think he stopped going?” Harper asked.
“The people he served with started dying off. Driving over and seeing fewer and fewer of his friends each year had to be depressing.”
“How many of his old buddies are left?”
“I wouldn’t know.” Harper’s father shrugged. “Frank Carmelo, for sure. They were neighbors, growing up. Friends since they were in diapers. Only had a spat once. In love with the same girl. Had a nasty fight about it. Frank was a tough guy too. Survived POW camp. Anyway, your grandfather had to pull them apart more than once. Why?”
The washer beeped in the laundry room. Rose Finnegan dried her hands on a dishcloth and headed out there.
“I think Lamm might have had some secret prepper club going with a few other people,” Harper said when she was out of earshot.
Not that his mother was a gossip, but it was police business, an active investigation, everything on a need-to-know basis.
“Wouldn’t be surprised.” His father reached for another slice of bacon. “He was always talking about society falling apart.” Then he said, carefully, “How is Allie Bianchi doing?”
“The
more I find out, the less I think she had anything to do with the murder.”
“Who, then?”
“One of Lamm’s friends. I think the victim let in the killer. Let the guy get close to him with a gun. No real sign of forced entry. No struggle.”
Lamm had no other injuries beyond the single gunshot to the head. He hadn’t been roughed up. Which meant the killer hadn’t had to beat the location of the safe out of him. Which meant the killer already had known the location of the safe.
A number of people in Broslin could have suspected that Lamm had gold and silver and he kept it at home. But who would have known where the safe was hidden? Only the people who pitched in to build the stash—Lamm’s prepper buddies.
“Anyone other than Frank Carmelo you think the old man might have hung out with?” he asked.
His father shook his head. “Don’t know. Sorry, son. On the rare occasion that he came into the pub, he always came alone.”
“One lead is better than no leads. Thanks.” Harper paused plowing through his food, nodding toward the packed bags at the bottom of the stairs. “Ready for the trip?”
His father went down to Louisiana for a week at the end of March each year for some wild hog hunting and catching up with his brothers and cousins.
Sean Finnegan scooped up a fried egg. “You could still come along.”
“Not in the middle of a murder case.” Harper finished his coffee and stood to take his plate to the sink. “But say hi to the crew for me.”
He found his mother on his way out, thanked her for breakfast, then he headed straight over to Frank Carmelo’s place.
The tidy townhome where Frank lived with his granddaughter and her kids sat in a small development near the flea market that operated in a giant hangar on Sundays, the only remnant of a small local airport. Houses were all variations on the same plan, the only differences being the color of the siding and the front door. All built by the same builder, most bought by GIs some seventy years ago, courtesy of GI home loans.
Since Lamm’s prepper club had an arsenal of weapons at their headquarters, Harper figured they would keep guns at home too, so he checked his service weapon as he walked up to the front door.
He rang the bell, and when the door opened, he greeted the man behind it by his first name. “Frank.” He knew the guy from Finnegan’s. “How are you?”
“Harper.” Frank Carmelo appeared more haggard than usual, his face drawn, his shoulders collapsed. His thinning white hair looked uncombed, his face unshaved, his blue checkered shirt untucked. “Is this about Chuck?”
“Heard you were friends.”
“We were that.”
“You think I could come in?”
Frank stepped aside. “Have the house to myself. Everybody is either at work or school.”
He showed Harper into a simple but clean living room, offered him a soda from the fridge, which Harper accepted before cutting to the chase.
“I have to ask, just as a formality, where were you the night before last, between six and eight p.m.?” The coroner had put the time of death at around seven.
Frank paled and didn’t so much sit in his recliner as collapse into it. He was short of breath as he asked, “You think I killed Chuck?”
“No, sir.” Harper kept his tone friendly. He didn’t want the man to clam up. “I have to ask everyone I talk to in connection to the murder.”
The explanation didn’t appease Frank, but after a few seconds, he answered the question anyway, even if with a disapproving scowl. “I was right here.”
“Can your granddaughter confirm?”
“Monday evening?” The man gave a frustrated huff. “Every other day but that. She was over at a friend’s house. Sleepover party for the kids, then the storm hit, and Tiffany stayed over too, didn’t want to drive home. Power kept going in and out. Guess her friend could use the help.”
“Hell of a storm.” Harper nodded. And no alibi. “I was out plowing. Could barely see past the hood of the truck.”
Frank shifted in his seat. “They say you arrested Tony Bianchi’s daughter. Tony back in town? Hope he didn’t talk that girl into something.”
“Died in prison, as it turns out.” Harper had finally checked, not that he thought Allie had lied about it, but so he could officially cross the item off his to-do list.
“The life caught up with him, I suppose.” Frank didn’t look upset. “Never was up to no good. Wouldn’t have thought the daughter would follow in his footsteps. She was a nice kid. I remember her. Used to have a paper route. She’d bring the paper up onto the porch every time it rained. Haven’t had that good a service since she left.”
The paper route. Harper stifled a smile. He’d forgotten that. She used to be out there at the crack of dawn, pedaling her scruffy bicycle and tossing folded papers from her basket. He’d gone with her maybe twice. Back in those days, he was usually up late—usually up to no good. He hadn’t been an early riser.
“Can’t discuss any suspects. Sorry,” he told Frank. “I’m here to ask what you can tell me about the victim.”
Frank huffed. “Chuck was a decent man, I tell you that.”
Harper waited for more.
Frank rubbed his right knee. “We shipped over to Vietnam together. Came home together too. I got married, had three daughters.”
“Heard you might have been in love with the same girl. Any hard feelings lingering over that?”
“For a while, I guess, at the beginning. Then Chuck came around. Anyway, Verna died fifteen years ago. Hardly something we’d fight over at this stage. And Chuck wouldn’t have been happy, married with kids. He knew that. Told me that. Different personality. He was a loner. He liked sitting alone and thinking about stuff. Chuck, he…” Frank shook his head. “Didn’t like to leave the house much. Especially after he retired. He’d go for groceries once a month, maybe out to Eileen’s diner or your father’s pub for dinner once or twice, if he didn’t feel like cooking, and that was that. Just got more and more worried about the world.”
“He became a prepper,” Harper said to signal that he knew already, and Frank wouldn’t be betraying any confidence if he talked about it. “There’s a show about them my mother likes to watch. I caught it with her a few times. Looks like a lot of work.”
Frank nodded.
“Anyone get into that with him? You? Any of his buddies from the old days?” Harper asked. “Seems like something a man wouldn’t want to do alone. Anything bad happens, you want to have someone to watch your back.”
Frank looked toward the window, as if something fascinating was happening suddenly outside on the street. His expression was closed, his body language uncomfortable.
Force and badgering wouldn’t work, not on a man who’d survived POW camp, so Harper decided to wait the guy out. He sipped his soda, set his can on the coaster on the coffee table between them, picked it up again. He used silence as a weapon. Except Frank didn’t crack.
Finally, Harper leaned forward. “Just between the two of us, I think one of his prepper friends might have been involved in the murder.”
Or more than one, the possibility occurred to him as a soft noise behind Frank drew his attention. There was somebody in the kitchen.
“You got anyone back there?” He asked in a casual tone. “Another visitor?” He kept his eyes on the doorway as he shifted so he’d have easy access to his weapon.
Chapter Twelve
“I’ll be in touch with my new schedule as soon as possible. Thank you for being so understanding,” Allie said before ending the call, sounding polite, but angry enough to bite a rattlesnake. Having to cancel her shows for the rest of the week killed her. She couldn’t afford to lose the money.
She silently cursed Harper. Then, since she was thinking about the Finnegans, she dialed the pub. She wanted to thank Kennan again for the bail.
“My brother’s doing,” Kennan told her. “He would have done it himself, but it would have looked bad.”
Beca
use he is investigating the case.
“I’m sorry he made you do it.”
Kennan laughed. “That’ll be the day, when my little brother will make me do anything.” He went quiet for a second. “Listen, I had a good talk with him the other day…” He cleared his throat. “I want to apologize. I think my family might have unfairly judged your family, back in the day.”
Oh. Well. That was unexpected. “You were protecting your brother,” Allie said after a moment of startled silence. “You were right to protect him. My father wasn’t a good influence. I’m the one who should apologize. And I do.”
“Harper says you’re not like your father. I believe him.”
“Thanks.”
“It looked bad, you know, back then. Tony had him steal that pickup, then the two of you lit out, leaving him holding the bag. If Captain Bing wasn’t the man he is, Harper would have gone to jail. He’d have a record now. For damn sure he wouldn’t be a detective.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I know now that wasn’t how it went down. You had nothing to do with it. Harper told me.”
“Thank you. And thank you again for bailing me out.”
“No problem. I had it set aside for a boat I’m thinking about buying. It can wait. Hey, maybe I’ll change my mind in the meanwhile and save the money.” He paused for a second. “But don’t skip bail.”
“I promise.”
“Are you coming over for lunch?”
“I don’t want to make your mom uncomfortable.”
“She’s a strong woman. She’ll live.”
“I’ll think about it.”
But she didn’t, not really, and not only because of Rose. She was avoiding Harper.
I wish we’d met again under different circumstances.
He’d just said that to mess with her head, she was pretty sure. The infuriating thing was that it was working. Because now she kept thinking about what it would have been like if they’d met under different circumstances.
Would she have liked the new Harper?
Probably.
The thought wasn’t helpful in the least. He was still investigating her. She could not let her guard down around him, could not fall into some stupid in a parallel universe fantasy.
