Tossing the last shovelful of snow to the side, he took off his gloves and reached for my hand. “You told me before that you had good instincts when you followed your gut. What is your gut saying now?”
Right then it was saying, Forget about this stupid case and kiss this guy. I stifled the urge and looked around for Cricket. For some reason, talking to that dumb cat seemed to give me clarity. “I don’t know if I’m on the right track or not, but I do know that if I don’t give it one more shot, I’ll regret it.”
He squeezed my hand and smiled. “Then there’s your answer.”
I wanted to fall into his warm brown eyes and strong arms. I wished it were Friday night and we were talking across a candlelit table. I blinked to regain my senses. “After this crazy week, I’m really looking forward to spicy Mexican food and cold margaritas to wash everything clean.”
“Mexican food? Um, I thought we’d grab a pizza or maybe some barbeque.”
I stuck out my bottom lip. “Oh, but I had my heart set on going back to that little place in the Creekside Casino. After all, it’s where we had our first...dinner.”
He let go of my hand and picked up the shovel.
I followed him down the sidewalk toward the street. “What is it? Why don’t you want to go there?” I felt a churning in my stomach. Did he have an ex-girlfriend working there? Or maybe she wasn’t an ex.
“It’s...just...that—” He turned and glanced at his house as though he wanted to run away.
Jealousy quickly morphed into anger. “Maybe going out is a bad idea. I mean, if you are already in another relationship—”
He looked back at me but dropped his eyes. “I’m not. It’s Nancy.”
My hands flew up to my face. “Oh dear lord, please tell me you are not in love with your sister!”
He scrunched up his face. “Gross! Of course not. It’s just that she is going to be there on Friday night with her date.”
I heaved a sigh of relief. “Is that all? You scared me for a minute. That’ll make it more fun.” I grinned and twirled my invisible mustache. “We’ll hide in a dark corner so we can get a look at this new guy. Has she told you who he is?”
Jake darted his eyes from mine. “She did.”
I stopped smiling. “She told you, but she won’t tell me?”
He stared down at the shovel.
“Jake, what aren’t you telling me?”
“She doesn’t want you to know who she’s going out with.”
“Why not?”
He took a deep breath. “Because it’s your brother.”
Chapter 24
Sure, Jake tried to stop me, but I couldn’t just stand there and act like everything was fine. Nothing about the situation was fine. Nor was it funny or ironic or acceptable. I felt like I had lost my best friend...again.
First Patrick, then my brother, and now Nancy. The mere fact that they would keep it a secret confirmed that they knew it was a betrayal. Tears burned my eyes as I drove. On instinct, I headed home. But not down the street to the house I’d inherited from Gran. I went to the lodge. As I got closer, I thought about all the things I wanted to say to Tyler. We’d had confrontations in the past—back when Patrick died—but years of pent-up emotions could no longer be contained. I was ready to let it all out.
I found him on the dock, mopping the floor of one of the pontoons. Wearing boots and a denim jacket, he looked much as he did all those years ago when I begged him to take a friend and go on an overnight hunting trip with Patrick. Just try to get to know him, I had said. Give him a chance.
When Tyler saw me marching down the path toward him, he took a long drag off his cigarette. “What’s up, kid?”
I balled my fists and crossed my arms. “Nancy? Of all the people you could go out with, you pick Nancy?”
A sly grin crossed his face as he went back to mopping.
“Aren’t you going to say anything?”
“What’s there to say? We started talking, I asked her out, no big deal. It’s just a date.”
“Just a date? She’s my best friend. She’s Jake’s sister. Why can’t you get your own life instead of constantly ruining mine?”
Tyler froze. Then, as if in slow motion, he laid down the mop and flicked the cigarette into the lake. He climbed out of the boat and walked past me, mumbling, “Follow me.”
I trailed behind him as he got in his pickup truck. I got in too. “What are you doing?”
“This isn’t about Nancy, it’s about Patrick. You’ve always said you wanted the truth, well, I’m ready to give it to you.” When he started the engine, bad nineties music blared from the stereo. He sped off in the direction of the main road.
I put on my seatbelt and tried to imagine what he might say. I knew where he was taking me. The drive to the campsite was about forty-five minutes up into the mountains. This would be the first time I’d been there since before Patrick was killed. I’d never had the guts to go there on my own.
As we bounced our way up the hills, I closed my eyes and tried to picture Patrick’s grayish-blue eyes and sandy-blond hair. His face had faded in my memory. A few years after he died, I had finally put away all my pictures of him, hoping that would help me forget. Another face crept into my mind. It was Jake’s.
I shuddered as my eyes flew open. This wasn’t the time to think about Jake. I braced myself for what my brother might tell me. All my theories melted away. It was time for the truth.
When Tyler turned off the road and drove through the metal gate next to the crooked ponderosa pine tree, I felt like I did all those years ago when we would come up here as a family to hunt and sleep out under the stars. The snow was piled up on the sides of the road, and I could see tiny tracks of animal prints leading into the wood.
Tyler parked near the old camper. He turned off the truck and the cab was suddenly filled with deafening silence. Finally, he spoke. “This is exactly where Patrick parked his truck. We had gotten here late and decided to wait to hunt in the morning.” He pointed to a spot in the distance. “Right there is where we made a fire. Patrick had brought enough food for an army. He cooked up sausage and hamburgers.”
My chest began to tighten. Now that it was happening, I wasn’t so sure I could handle this.
“Cameron and I had brought beer...and weed. At first, Patrick only drank. Then he smoked a joint. Just one, though. I think he wanted to impress us. We all began to loosen up. At first we talked about you, since you were the one thing we had in common. It was obvious he really loved you. Eventually, we talked about sports and girls and stupid stuff we’d done in school. By the time we called it a night, we were all pretty wasted.”
I stared at the campsite trying to picture the scene of my brother and Cameron swapping stories with Patrick. “It sounds like you all had a good time.”
“We did,” he said, nodding his head slowly. “And you were right. Patrick wasn’t the stuck-up college boy I thought he was.”
I felt a knot in my throat. So it had worked. The camping trip had brought the two closer together.
“I never heard Patrick get up the next morning. He must have decided to let us sleep and go out on his own. I just remember hearing a loud noise and woke up. My first thought was that Patrick must have shot a deer. But then I wondered why a deer would have been that close to the camper. I got up to check it out.”
I asked the question that had constantly been on my mind. “Where was Cameron?”
“He was still sleeping.” Tyler rolled down the window and lit a cigarette. After taking a drag, he blew the smoke out the window. “It was still dark out. I grabbed a flashlight and went outside. At first I didn’t see anything. Then I saw him lying on the ground behind the pickup. He was dead, Wendy. I swear, he was already dead.”
Silent tears rolled down my cheeks. Of all the times I had imagined what might have happened, I had never looked at it from Tyler’s point of view.
“I started yelling for Cameron to come out. He finally did. I ran back to the cam
per and got a blanket. I laid it over Patrick. I know it sounds stupid, but I didn’t want him to get cold. I stayed with him the whole time. Anyway, I told Cameron to get Patrick’s mobile phone and call the sheriff. He freaked. He started ranting about how trashed he was, how he had more weed in the camper, and how much trouble he’d be in since he was on probation.”
“So that’s why he left.” It was a statement, not a question.
He nodded. “He hitched a ride back to town and left me there.”
I couldn’t believe that snake, Cameron, would just abandon his friend like that. “I remember when the sheriff told us you were the only one there when they arrived, I kept wondering how that was possible. When I tried to ask you about it, you wouldn’t explain.”
Tyler rubbed his forehead. “I was trying to protect Cam. And I felt so guilty. If I hadn’t been such a jackass, you’d have never made him take us out there, and he would still have been alive. I never forget that, believe me.”
I wanted to comfort him, but there was another question still unanswered. “What about the gun? Why was it loaded when he took it out of the case? Everyone said he would never have put it in there loaded.”
He flicked ashes onto the ground. “I wish I knew. But here’s the thing about ‘never’: it’s only true until it isn’t.”
The picture of my brother huddled next to Patrick on the ground gave me an odd sense of comfort. He had stayed right next to him. I reached over and touched Tyler’s arm. “I wish you’d told me the truth.”
“Me, too. Trust me. But once you lie, especially to the cops, it’s hard to admit the truth. Besides, I felt responsible for all of it. I deserved for you to hate me.”
I started to protest, but he was right. I had hated him for a long time. But after a while, I quit feeling much of anything toward him. Now, I realized there was room in my heart to love him again.
Leaning my head on his shoulder, I said, “I know this sounds cliché, but it wasn’t your fault. It was an accident. Plain and simple.”
“That’s what I’ve tried to tell you all these years. But there’s one thing I haven’t told you. Ever.”
I sat up. “What?”
“The real reason I didn’t like Patrick wasn’t because of him or the way he acted. It was because of you.”
My mouth dropped open. “Me?”
“Yep. He was stealing my little sister. My best friend. Remember how close we used to be?”
I laughed. “You sound just like Mom.”
“Yeah, that’s because we’re family.”
Chapter 25
Staring at my computer screen, my mind wandered between all of the events of the past week. From the party to the clown to Myra and Leslie to Tyler. Oh, and there was the horror movie set. Couldn’t forget that.
This was my last chance to get Leslie Harper to come clean and admit she’d locked Mr. Squishy in the freezer and clear Myra of the charges. Then I could move on to patching up and building my relationships.
I focused back on the pictures from the party to find one of Mr. Squishy to show Leslie. Jake said it might help trigger her memory or at least give me a clue if she were lying. I had taken several of him making balloon animals for the kids.
I settled on one where he was twisting blue balloons into the form of a dog for a pretty little girl in a white dress standing next to her mother. The photographer in me started to crop the mom out of the picture when I realized the woman was Susan Martinelli, Leslie’s friend “since the womb.” How ironic that they now had daughters about the same age, even though Leslie’s was a stepchild.
Perhaps a picture of Leslie with her runny mascara might also trigger something. After all, she had gone into the bathroom to cry. Maybe that had something to do with the clown and not her stepdaughter or her bad marriage.
The printer did its magic and spit out the pictures just as my cell phone rang. The number was unfamiliar. I almost let it go to voicemail. It’s a good thing I didn’t.
“This is Ben Jeffries from Albuquerque. You left a message for me about an old case in Cascada.” His voice was deep and a little scratchy.
“Oh, right. Thanks for calling me back.”
“Are you a reporter or something? I had a feeling you were calling about this latest clown murder. I’ve read about it in the Observer.”
I decided to tell him the truth. If my conversation with Tyler today taught me anything, it’s that the truth should always be your default response. “No, I’m a friend of the woman arrested for the crime. But I have a theory that this case is related to the one in 1982. I was hoping you could give me some information about it.”
“The sheriff should have the case files, but I’m not surprised if you’re trying to go around him. I’ve heard he can be a brick wall when he makes up his mind about a case.”
My thoughts exactly. “First of all, was the case ever solved?”
“Nope. The only eyewitness we had was a little girl. The thieves were pretty smart. They got away clean.”
“Thieves? You mean there was more than one?”
“We figured there had to be based on the size of the haul.”
“Do you remember the little girl’s name who saw the clown?”
“That case was more than thirty years ago. I can barely remember my own name, much less hers. But the house belonged to that richy rich family, the Woodgates.”
“What about the clown? Did she give much of a description?”
“I remember she was scared as a jackrabbit who’d just seen a ghost.”
That was an unusual mixed metaphor. I bit my tongue.
“She didn’t want to talk at first. We ended up taking her down to the station and giving her ice cream. That’s when she told us about the clown. Nothing out of the ordinary—for a clown. Green hair, red nose, big shoes.”
It sounded like Mr. Squishy, or it could have been any other guy in a clown costume. “So did you question her any other time? Was she able to give any more details?”
“Nope. Her parents refused to let us talk to her again. Apparently, the whole episode of waking up in the middle of the night and finding a creepy clown in the house freaked her out. It would have freaked me out, too.”
“Yeah, I guess the Woodgates were being protective of their child.”
“Oh, this wasn’t the Woodgate girl, it was a friend who’d come over to stay the night.”
I felt the wind come out of my sails as my entire revenge theory fell to pieces. “Are you sure?”
“Positive.”
“Well, thanks for calling, Detective Jeffries. You’ve been a big help.”
And that was that. My last lead crumbled like a broken cookie. Leslie had told the truth. She hadn’t seen the clown at her house. I picked up the pictures from the printer tray and stared at them. Poor Leslie looked so sad in comparison to all the other mothers and daughters.
Then I noticed something. Where was she? I thought back to our conversation at Karol’s. Then, still holding the pictures, I grabbed my jacket and raced out the door.
Everyone knows a picture paints a thousand words. What would she have to say about this one?
THE ADRENALINE RUSH had me practically running by the time I hit the steps to the library. Sure enough, volunteers were there sorting through boxes of books for the sale.
Leslie Harper, with her freshly highlighted hair, took one look at me and threw out her hands. “That’s it, stalker. I’m calling the sheriff!”
I brushed past her and stopped in front of Susan Martinelli. “We need to talk.”
She groaned. “What? Now? Is it about Leslie?”
“You could say that.”
She crooked her finger for me to follow her behind one of the tall bookshelves. She put her hands on her hips. “What?”
Whether it was because of all the books surrounding me or because of Jake’s advice, my voice came out in storytelling manner. “Once upon a time there was a little girl about five years old. The year was 1982. She was spendin
g the night at her best friend’s house.”
Susan’s furrowed brows and gaping mouth made it clear she thought I had lost my mind. “What are you jabbering about?” She slowly backed away.
I kept pace with her. “Something woke the girl up. Maybe it was a noise or maybe she was thirsty. She went out into the den and saw something that frightened her.”
“Stop it! You’re scaring me.” She turned down the next aisle of books, trying to get away.
I followed her. “What she saw was a man, but not an ordinary man. Not her friend’s father. It was a scary man dressed as a clown.”
“No! Stop!” She turned another corner and was trapped right next to the microfiche machine.
“Years went by until one day, that little girl was all grown up and at a birthday party. She saw the same clown again, didn’t you, Susan?”
“No,” she insisted, “it wasn’t me.”
“Then why did you lie? You said you just loved that birthday cake at the end of the party. But you didn’t stay until the end of the party, did you?” I held up the group photo.
She turned to face the wall, knowing she and her daughter weren’t in it. “Yes, we left right after cake. My daughter had something on her dress. I took her home to change.”
I heard a noise behind me and turned. It was Sheriff Grady. I shook my head and put up my hand to stop him.
Miraculously, he got the message and retreated back around the corner.
I turned back to Susan. She hadn’t seen Grady. “Something on her dress?” I asked.
“Yes. Cake icing.” She turned back around then and tried to appear smug, but the fear in her eyes was real.
“Cake icing or face paint? Paint you had gotten on your hand when you struck Mr. Squishy.”
She sucked in a deep breath.
“After you locked him in the freezer. Isn’t that right.” I held up the clown’s picture to her face.
She let out a soft cry, closed her eyes, and sank down to the floor.
“How’d you get him to go in there? Was it the flask?”
Killer Shots Murder Mysteries - Books 1-3 Page 26
