Ropes and Trees and Murder

by Patti Larsen

  “Who are you working for?” I could prod as much as he could. After all, I’d learned from the best.

  Evasion, thy name was John Fleming. “Doesn’t matter,” he said. “Tell me everything.”

  Since I had my own plans to get as much out of him as possible, I conceded, at least to a point, pausing at the visit I’d just paid to Pamela and Fleur. Dad didn’t seem to notice when I stumbled to a halt just short of that, nodding at his hands clasped on the tile counter in front of him.

  “I was hired by Philip Davis,” Dad said then. “Blackstone.”

  He was what? “Why?”

  “They believe someone planted evidence or created false information to ruin Zip It! and shut down the park.” Dad shrugged like he wasn’t surprised.

  “That confirms what I heard,” I said before I could stop myself. Dad’s eyes met mine, frown returned.

  “From who?”

  Whoops. “Doesn’t matter. My question is much more important.” He didn’t seem to think my evasion tactic was worthy, but I rushed on anyway before he could question me further about my source. “Why does Blackstone, a corporation that devours small towns for profit, care about fake environmental protests?”

  Dad’s frown deepened. “Because they own part of the land around the park,” he said. “And they’ve noted a trend in the past few years, a disturbing trail of false claims against places like Reading where they have interests.”

  Dad clearly didn’t have the entire story and I wasn’t in a position to tell him everything. Well, wasn’t that craptastic?

  “Fiona Fleming,” Dad said in his best stern Father knows best voice. “What aren’t you telling me?”

  Oh no he did not use that ridiculous attempt at intimidation on me. “Same question back at you, Dad,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest the exact instant he sat up and performed the identical action. I imagined we looked pretty similar, two Flemings with scowling expressions facing off over our own stubbornness. Might have been funny if it wasn’t so pathetic.

  Dad shook his head. “I need to know, Fee.”

  “So do I.” I tilted my head, feeling my rough bun at the base of my neck shift as it partially let go, my auburn hair falling over my shoulder. Petunia whined softly at me, her bulging eyes shifting to Dad and back again. “You can’t trust Philip or Blackstone, Dad.”

  “I did my due diligence,” he said, sounding angry now. “Did you?” His eyes narrowed. “Who’s your source, Fee? And what did they tell you?”

  No way. Maybe if he didn’t try to bully his own daughter I might have caved. But as he sat there, glaring like I was some errant teenager and he was big, bad John Fleming, sheriff and ridiculous town hero or something equally snort worthy, I doubled down and shook my head.

  “You tell me why you trust Blackstone and I might share what I know.” So weird to be on the other side of my dad. It had happened before, I’d doubted him in the past. Even thought him capable of murder. But I would never in a million years have believed he’d side with a corporation against his own town’s best interest.

  “This isn’t a game, young lady,” Dad snapped, standing up abruptly, hands falling to his sides. I’d never seen him so angry.

  “No, it’s not.” I wasn’t getting anywhere, clearly. “This is bigger than Reading, Dad. Bigger than murder.”

  He didn’t flinch. “Have you told Crew?” Wow, that sounded bitter.

  “As a matter of fact, I haven’t,” I snapped back. “I made a promise to a source.” My jaw tightened despite my internal command to relax, slow down, let it go. This was my father I was holding out against. Not my enemy.

  He closed the distance between us, looming over me. Not threatening—he was my dad. But definitely laying on the pressure. I’d seen him do this to suspects before, using his height and his bulk to his advantage. Thing was, I was his daughter, not some perp. Intimidation didn’t work on me.

  “Fee,” he said, growling voice deep and low.

  “Dad,” I said, an impulsive question leaping into my mind as, in a flash of inspiration, a white card with a name drawn in block letters appeared in an instant of memory. “Who is Siobhan Doyle?”

  Back in October, when I’d attended the séance at Sadie Hatch’s place, I’d been exposed to her fake ghosts and apparitions, her attempt to prove she was psychic giving me the shivers. The renderings of the dead she’d offered up had been holographic, technology developed by her grandson, Denver. While I knew they were fake, there had been one, the ghost of Manuel Cortez, that still gave me shivery goosebumps when I thought about him, if only because both Denver and his girlfriend, Alice, claimed that particular apparition might have been real.

  Whatever. Still, the memory scared me to this day and I tried not to think about it. Except, in the moment I mentioned the woman’s name from the card Malcolm Murray handed me, the fear of seeing that dead young man’s spirit came rushing back. Not because he appeared to me, not at all. No, it was the way Dad’s face lost all color, turning ashen and pale as if he were the one who saw a ghost at the mere mention of her.

  He gaped at me a long moment, cold sweat breaking out on his upper lip, eyes wide and staring. I reached out to touch his hand, terrified by what I witnessed, only to have him shake himself almost like a dog shedding water before backing away abruptly, one big hand rising to swipe over his open mouth.

  Dad spun and stormed out of the kitchen, striding so fast on his long legs for the exit and with such abrupt speed by the time I got moving to follow him he was already out the front door, not quite slamming it shut behind him. And while I watched him go with my heart in my throat, I made myself a promise in the quiet of the foyer of Petunia’s with my pug whining softly at my feet.

  As soon as the wedding was over and this whole murder case was behind me, I had a phone call to make. Devastating or not, I had to know what secret Siobhan Doyle held and why it terrified my father.

  ***

  Chapter Twenty Nine

  Mom breezed her way around the kitchen of the annex, humming softly to herself while I scowled into my coffee and thought about blurting out a question that haunted me since Malcolm handed me a business card in the back of his town car. The same question I asked Dad the night before. But I couldn’t bring myself to ruin her mood, not after she’d been in such a state the last few months only to reemerge as my long-lost mother thanks to a mysterious person I needed to hug as hard as I could for helping her recover her sense of self.

  Instead, I grumped into my mug and let her enjoy her morning and the sunshine pouring into the modern, stainless steel kitchen. While I’d insisted on maintaining some charm in the remainder of the remodel, this space I’d given over to convection ovens and polished counters and a durable cork flooring meant to go easy on the feet of those who worked here. Mom seemed delighted by the choices Jared and I made, her sneakers squeaking faintly while she examined every nook and cranny with her prim blue apron snug around her waist.

  I left her for the foyer at the sound of the front door chime, wondering if Pamela and Fleur had come to get me or if I was going to make the lonely walk to Crew’s office alone. I’d meant to go at 9AM, to get it over with like tearing off a particularly uncomfortable bandage the moment Daisy and the staff had breakfast in hand. But Mom’s insistence I join her at the annex while she looked around was the excuse I needed to hide out and not spill what I’d learned to the overtaxed and likely snarky sheriff.

  Instead of the two journalists, I found myself saluting Jared and Aiden with my rapidly cooling coffee, the sight of the friends not really alleviating my mood as much as solidifying it. Didn’t help that Jared looked faintly embarrassed, likely thanks to his fistfight of the day before, or that Aiden’s pinched and worried expression woke the memory of his girlfriend’s infidelity.

  Amazing start to the day. Couldn’t wait to see what happened from here.

  “Have you seen Carmen?” Speaking of said girlfriend. Aiden had his hands in his back pockets, Jared’s f
ace darkening a little.

  I stammered a denial, though it was impossible for him to know about what I’d seen the night before, right? I had zero reason to stutter nervously the negative while Jared’s scowl deepened. I now suspected the reason my friend had gotten into the altercation with Philip—had he witnessed what I witnessed if at a different time?—and wondered if he guessed why I was acting oddly.

  Grace’s door opened and she joined me in the foyer, refusing to look at either Jared or Aiden, her round face rested though her eyes appeared a bit bloodshot from crying. “Are you serving breakfast?”

  I turned to gesture at the kitchen, to tell her to trot herself to Petunia’s before Daisy wrapped the last of the morning’s offerings, when Philip’s door at the top of the stairs opened and he emerged. But he wasn’t alone, was he? Oh, no. No, he was not. Just my freaking luck to be witness to the attractive young brunette who exited behind him.

  Carmen had to choose right then to break Aiden’s heart?

  Oh, crap.

  I wasn’t the only one to take in her rumpled t-shirt, her damp hair fresh from the shower, the guilty and horrified look on her face when she stopped abruptly about halfway down the stairs with her dark eyes locked on Aiden’s stricken face. I wanted to rush to him and turn him around, push him outside so he didn’t have to witness her betrayal so blatantly. And to avoid the inevitable meltdown I felt to the core of my being, the far too familiar blow to the gut that was the moment of reveal the person you loved had stabbed you in the heart.

  I remembered staring in shock at Ryan and the girl he’d fumbled around under the sheets of our bed. I recalled clearly and with great agony the moment he stood with his face red and his hips covered with the corner of the comforter I’d bought for us just a week prior, the feather filled softness of it taking up the bulk of my tips for the month. I lived in that moment as Aiden inhaled, his face contorting from surprised hurt to utter rage and couldn’t shake free even when he lunged, shouting incoherently, toward the staircase and the stunned and silent Philip.

  Thankfully, Jared was thinking straight, if the only one in the foyer to do so. He caught his friend by the arm and wrestled him into an awkward looking headlock. It didn’t stop Aiden from continuing his audible barrage of swearing and calling Carmen some rather unpleasant things. She pushed past Philip, her own voice adding to the cacophony I barely registered, honestly, my mental connection to the moment of my own hurt so powerful I staggered from it.

  And snapped back into reality, suddenly and with the kind of clarity that stung, before lunging for the three young people now tussling in my entry, my own voice booming over their shouts.

  “OUTSIDE!”

  Jared flinched, Carmen pulling back from her attempt to hit Aiden while he continued to shout at her.

  “I’m not kidding!” I jabbed a finger at them. “Not in my annex! You three want to act like children, good on you. But do it on the freaking sidewalk!”

  Jared physically dragged Aiden out of the foyer and down the steps, Carmen following after them, while I panted through my reaction to the scene. I spun to find Grace had slunk off, Philip with her, and good riddance. The sound of shouting intensified from the street, but I didn’t care, not even when the wail of a siren broke through the screaming of profanities, Crew’s deep, angry voice booming over the shrieking Carmen defiantly threw back at him.

  Mom came running, her eyes huge, her hands on her heart, pausing next to me while I gripped my mug so tightly I was sure I’d crush the ceramic if I wasn’t careful. She met my eyes while I caught my breath, hugging me a moment.

  “What happened?”

  “Doesn’t matter,” I said through gritted teeth. The sound of fighting diminished, Crew’s voice dropping from a shout to a more reasonable volume, though still audible through the open door.

  I forced myself to exit the foyer, to descend the steps and join the gathering, though I winced at the few guests of mine who gathered outside Petunia’s, witnesses to the meltdown unfolding so publically.

  Aiden openly wept while Carmen scowled at Crew who was talking to her with his head down, his hand on her arm. The sheriff glanced up and met my eyes a moment, his gaze steady but cold and I felt myself contract as I remembered I had more than Fleur’s information to talk to him about. Robert’s grin wasn’t helping any, nor was his repeated hand gesture from the night before as he aimed his index finger at me and pulled the trigger.

  Crew straightened from talking to Carmen, turning toward Aiden who no longer fought Jared, sniffling as he wiped at his face with the collar of his now stretched out Zip It! t-shirt.

  “The next person who gets into a fist fight on my streets gets charged with assault.” He sounded angry but controlled, gruffly confident. Aiden nodded, stared at his feet, while Jared held up both hands in defeat. Only Carmen seemed defiant, tossing her dark hair. Crew looked up at me again, tipped his hat. But there was little warmth in the gesture, a stiffness that made me sigh.

  “Ms. Flemings,” he said.

  Right, Mom was with me. “Sheriff,” I said. “I need to talk to you.”

  Wouldn’t you know, Matt chose that exact moment to pull up to the front of the annex and climb out, his eyes locked on me? The instant he appeared Crew’s face shut down and I knew in that heartbeat not only had Robert run to the sheriff with his ridiculous story, the handsome man I thought I was getting to know believed him. At least, enough to trigger doubt that crossed his face as clearly as if he’d said so out loud.

  Now, maybe if things had been different I would have reacted better. Possibly without the kind of temperamental fireworks that exploded in my chest as if he’d accused me of cheating when we weren’t even really going out—technicalities be damned. But, the trouble was, I’d just been through a highly emotional slam dunk down a memory superhighway that dragged me behind the worst day of my life. So, forgive me if I kind of lost my cool for a second and shot Crew the kind of deathly stare that could easily have ended in the sort of altercation he’d just put an end to.

  I loved my mother. She might not have had any idea what was actually going on, but she had the best instincts on the planet when it came to me and that morning was no exception. With a kindly but firm hand on my arm, she tugged me against her side and pinched me firmly with the other, so hard I twitched and met her gaze rather than hurtling myself at Robert in an attempt to gouge his eyes out.

  “Crew.” Matt seemed oblivious to everything going on around him, Carmen and Aiden not the least of the mess. To his credit he seemed pretty upset, though he could take a freaking number.

  The sheriff turned slowly toward him as if debating what he was going to do next. Wow, was he really buying into what Robert said that much? Seriously. All the anger ran out of me, replaced suddenly by cold hurt. Okay, so I was a bit of a roller coaster, no judging. No one had the right to do that to me.

  Meanwhile, I was judging Carmen, wasn’t I?

  “I need to talk to you.” Matt’s agitation cut through everything. Crew finally faced him, and even I paid attention.

  “I’ll be right with you.” Crew turned back, sighed, shoulders sagging just a fraction. “Do I need to cart the three of you off to jail for the day or are we on the same page?”

  “We’re good, Sheriff,” Jared said. “Come on, Aiden.”

  Carmen shrugged, looking miserable now that she’d had time to diffuse her own temper. “Aiden…”

  He staggered away from her, Jared’s arm around his shoulders. She slunk off down the street on her own, arms around herself, though where she was going I had no idea. And didn’t care. Not when Matt, bouncing on the balls of his feet, caught Crew’s attention again.

  Crew nodded to him, clearly cranky but listening. “What happened?”

  “Someone broke into the station last night.” Matt’s eyes met mine for a moment and he nodded to me. I sighed when Crew’s eyes followed his gaze, wanting to shout at the sheriff for what I assumed he was thinking despite having no idea wh
at was actually going through his mind. Damn it. “Whoever it was stole some evidence I found.”

  Crew’s head came up, scowl replacing the faint frown he’d worn a moment ago. “What evidence?”

  Matt flushed, looking at me again. “I meant to share, but I wanted to find out more first.”

  I guess I earned the glare the sheriff shot at me. “See what you started?” Wait, what? “Everyone’s a damned detective now.” I hardly needed to mention Matt was a freaking park ranger with a gun and a badge and investigative training, did I?

  From the hangdog look Matt gave me I suspected, however, Crew was not only right but the ranger held back the evidence in some kind of misguided attempt at impressing me. I would have smacked him if I was closer. Instead, I fumed where I stood while Crew’s jaw jumped, tic starting up like clockwork.

  “What did you find?” His deep voice rumbled gravel.

  “A lens cap,” Matt said, “a big one, like off one of those giant telephoto attachments.” Now where had I seen one of those recently? Damn it, Fleur.

  “Where?” Crew sounded interested at last.

  “In the tree,” Matt said, faint misery in his voice. “Where Lewis was found.” He tossed his hands as he finished like he knew he’d screwed up and didn’t know how to make things right. “There was blood on it.”

  ***

  Chapter Thirty

  Crew didn’t get to chastise him, because my blurtiness interceded.

  “The body was bloodless,” I said. I knew intimately because I’d hung on the line with it (him) for quite some time. “So whose blood was it?”

  “We need to ask that of Fleur King,” Matt said. “The owner’s name was etched on the cap.”

  And that told me I already guessed who it belonged to. Awesome.