A Zest for Murder (Sky High Pies Cozy Mysteries Book 5) (10 page)

CHAPTER
24

Dina Kincaid was sitting behind the
desk when Kyle Gallagher and I walked through her office door. She was
engrossed in a stack of papers and idly sipping from a can of Red Bull. It was
an hour after we finished the omelets and toast that I’d prepared in the Sky
High kitchen. While we ate, we’d mapped out a plan: meet with either Dina or
Trent for the latest on Tipper’s case before returning to Hanover Lane so we could
talk to neighbors about the twenty-four hours leading up to her disappearance.

“Detective Kincaid?” I said as Kyle
waited just outside the door.

Dina squinted as she stared at me
on the far side of her office. “Oh…hey, Katie! Sorry I didn’t hear you come in.
I’m trying to decipher someone’s notes from a suspect interview and it’s
turning my brain into goop.”

“Messy handwriting?”

She ignored the question as Kyle
followed me into the room. “Are you two together?”

I quickly connected the dots, introducing
Kyle and explaining that he and I met through Trent.

“Deputy Chief Walsh,” she said.
“Always trying to intercede.”

I couldn’t tell if she was peeved
at Trent or the remark was Dina’s attempt at humor. Either way, I simply
skipped over the comment and asked if she could spare a few minutes.

“Social?” she asked. “Or
professional?”

I walked over, dropped into one of
the guest chairs and motioned for Kyle to take the other.

“All of the above,” I said. “I
haven’t talked to you much since you got back from Cabo. And Kyle asked me to
help him search for Tipper.”

She narrowed her gaze again. “Cabo
was a disaster,” she said. “Torrential downpours. My sister caught a stomach
bug. And the hotel smelled like spoiled fish.”

As she finished the list of disappointments,
I noticed a faint smile flutter across her face.

“I can tell there’s more,” I said.

She glanced at Kyle. “Will you
indulge me for, like, ten seconds?”

He grinned. “Go right ahead,
detective.”

“Thank you,” Dina said, turning
back to me. “Before she got sick, my sister met the nicest guy, Katie! He lives
in Boulder, doesn’t have
any
baggage
and
he’s coming down to take
her to dinner next weekend.”

“That’s fantastic! I’m so happy to
hear she met a good guy.”

“That makes two of us,” Kyle said.
“It’s hard to find someone that you connect with these days. When Tipper and I
met…” At the mention of her name, his voice cracked slightly. “We just felt a
good connection, so I kind of…” He paused and straightened in the chair.
“Anyway, we didn’t come to talk about dating. We wanted to find out where you
are with the case. Has anything happened since I talked to Trent a couple of
hours ago?”

Dina’s forehead creased. “You
talked to Trent?”

“Yeah. Right before I stopped at
Kate’s place.”

“Okay, so…” She looked down at the
paperwork on her desk. “Did we know about the BMW at that point? I’m not sure
exactly when it was found or if…” Dina stopped to study Kyle’s expression. “And
from the look on your face, I can tell Trent hadn’t heard the news yet.”

“No,” he said. “This is the first
I’m hearing about it.”

“When was it found?” I asked. “And
where?”

Dina got up, shut the door and
returned to her desk. “I can’t discuss all the details,” she said. “But as a
courtesy…and because of your friendship with—” She paused, smiling softly. “I
should say, because of your
friendships
with Trent, I can tell you that
Tipper’s BMW was found parked in the driveway at a house on Yukon.”

I let the news sink in for a few
seconds, envisioning the street and trying to recall if I knew anyone who lived
in that part of town.

“And Tipper?” Kyle asked.

Dina shook her head. “Nothing. The
car was wiped clean, but there were six pine tree air fresheners hanging from
the rearview mirror.”

“Is that significant?” I asked.

“Very,” Dina said. “Because someone
wrote a ransom note on them, one sentence per pine tree.”

Kyle Gallagher pitched forward in
his chair. “
What
did you say?” he bellowed. “A ransom note?”

Dina cringed at the sudden
outburst. “Mr. Gallagher?”

“Tell me what you said!” he
demanded. “I just…did I even
hear
that right?”

“I’m talking to you as a courtesy,
Mr. Gallagher. If you’re going to get…” Dina stopped long enough to take a sip
of Red Bull. “Why don’t we all just start again?” she suggested. “I know you’re
going through a very traumatic situation, but those kinds of...uh, maybe you
could try to refrain from getting aggressive with your tone.”

“I’m sure he didn’t mean anything
by it, Dina,” I said calmly. “He’s concerned about Tipper and—”

“It’s more than that,” Kyle said.
“My last case as an agent involved an abduction.”

Dina nodded solemnly. “I
understand, but we need—”

“And the kidnapper wrote the ransom
note on a half dozen air fresheners,” Kyle said. “Six air fresheners that were
left hanging from the mirror in the victim’s car.”

For a brief moment, it felt like
the room was filled with concrete. It seemed to take an incredible amount of
strength and concentration to turn my head and look at Kyle Gallagher.

“Are you serious?” Dina asked,
finally breaking the silence.

“You better believe it,” he said.

“When was your last case?” I asked.

Kyle didn’t even look in my
direction. He kept his eyes on Dina until he suddenly stood and headed for the
door.

“Kyle!” I shouted, getting up to
follow. “Where are you going?”

“I’ve got to check on something,”
he yelled from the corridor. “I’ll call you as soon as I can.”

CHAPTER
25

Dina’s face was pale and motionless
when I returned to her office a few minutes later. After Kyle Gallagher
suddenly bolted from the room, I’d followed him into the hallway, hoping to get
at least a brief explanation for the startling departure.

But he was gone when I scrambled
around the corner toward the elevator. The display above the door indicated
that the car was headed up to the fourth floor, not hurtling toward the lobby.
I knew that his long legs would mean he was probably already at the bottom of
the stairs, so I retraced my steps back to Dina’s office.

“He’s gone,” I said.

She frowned. “You think?”

“Well, I’m sorry to state the obvious.
I just…what the heck was that all about anyway?”

“You heard him,” Dina said. “His
last case. I’d say it’s pretty obvious that he just made some kind of
connection between that and Tipper’s disappearance. I’m guessing he wanted to
check out a gut feeling about something.”

“We should ask Trent,” I suggested.
“He and Gallagher are friendly. Maybe they discussed Kyle’s last case before he
retired.”

“He’s
retired
?” Dina’s voice
was sharp. “What is he—forty or forty-five?”

I shrugged. “Beats me. I just know
that he was shot while working one of his last assignments. After a full
recovery, he went back to work, but then decided to switch careers.”

“What’s he doing now?” she asked.

“Besides running the hundred yard
dash out of meetings?” I quipped. “I actually haven’t got a clue what he’s
doing now; we were supposed to meet him the other night at Blanche’s. But they
didn’t show up, so we couldn’t quiz him on his past, present or future.”

“We?”

“Zack and I.”

Her eyes flashed wider. “That romance
thing’s still working out for you?”

“It is. And I count my blessings
every day.”

Dina tapped her manicure on the
desktop. “Was that the night Tipper went missing?” she asked. “When you and Mr.
Handsome were supposed to meet Gallagher?”

“It was actually the night before,”
I answered. “She wasn’t officially reported missing until the next afternoon
when I came by with a delivery and found the woman on the floor in the
kitchen.”

“So…what’s the deal then? You and
Gallagher are teaming up to see if you can find Tipper before we do?”

I nodded. “From what I understand,
he discussed it with Trent. Considering our compatible backgrounds, I guess
Deputy Chief Walsh agreed that it might be worthwhile.”

She smiled. “Trent is competitive
like that, isn’t he?”

“That’s not what I mean. It’s just
that time is of the essence, so I guess Trent figured—”

“Relax, Katie! It’s all good; I
know you’ll do the right thing. It’s Gallagher that I’m worried about.”

“Conflict of interest?”

She tilted her head slightly to the
left. “I just wish that Trent had run it by me first,” she said, ignoring my
question. “Gallagher may have a background with the DEA, but he’s too close to
the situation.”

“I don’t disagree, but how are you
going to stop him from doing what he’s already started?”

“And what
you’ve
already
started,” she said in a hushed voice. “Some of the officers around here are
asking if you’re a consulting detective now.”

“Because I was asked to help on a
couple of things that happened in town?”

“More like because they watch that
Elementary
show,” she said. “The one with Lucy Liu and Angelina Jolie’s first husband.”

I didn’t follow Hollywood gossip
all that closely, so I wasn’t aware that the actor who portrayed Sherlock
Holmes on the popular TV show had been married to Brad Pitt’s bride.

“What’s the guy’s name?”

“I have no idea, but he’s kind of
cute and he’s got a nice body.”

“Oh, I see. Your standards haven’t
changed much since high school. I remember you saying the same thing when you
stole Trent out from under me.”

She smiled. “Do you want to
rephrase that, Katie?”

“Uh…” My face was turning red.
“Yes, I would. I meant, when you stole Trent away from me.”

Her frothy giggle erupted into a
throaty laugh. “Yeah, but who got the better end of that deal? I ended up
married to the guy for way too many unhappy years, while you gallivanted off to
Chicago.”

“I doubt if all of your time with
Trent was unhappy,” I said, feeling a twinge of compassion at the sad look on
her face.

She nibbled on her lower lip,
smoothed a wrinkle from her sleeve and then the gloomy expression vanished. “To
be honest, our marriage was
really
good…until it suddenly wasn’t. We
grew apart, you know? It’s the classic scenario—married too young, not enough
in common, differences of opinion.”

“And look at you now!” I said,
hoping to shift the conversation. “Working together every day to keep Crescent
Creek safe.”

Dina wrinkled her nose. “Don’t blow
smoke, Katie.”

“I’m serious!”

The crinkly nose relaxed. “I know,”
she said. “But you were also blowing smoke.”

I held up my hand, the thumb and
index finger nearly touching. “Maybe just a smidge.”

“But I know how you operate, so
it’s to be expected. Just like both Trent and I know that you can’t keep from getting
involved in some of the more nefarious things that happen around here.”

“I just want to be of service to my
community,” I offered. “If I can uncover something that’ll help, it makes me
feel—”

“I get it, Katie,” Dina cut in.
“And I wouldn’t expect anything less. Besides, I know you’ve already talked to
Lila Belle Devereaux and Hannah Flanagan.”

My cheeks went red again. “Dang the
luck! I was trying to be surreptitious. And I planned to tell you about all of
that. I guess somebody saw me and beat me to the punch.”

She smiled. “Of course, Katie! Are
you surprised? This is Crescent Creek. Everyone knows just about everything
about everyone else!”

CHAPTER
26

The next morning arrived as another
restless night fizzled to a close. I’d dozed off around eleven reading
Murder
in Mesopotamia
, but my eyes flashed open when the furnace thumped on around
two. After trying countless combinations of the usual suspects—all three of my
body pillows, two extra quilts, my sleep mask, the CD of soothing ocean waves
that my sister gave me and a few sips of warm milk, I threw in the towel around
four o’clock.

“What’s the point?” I’d complained
to the darkness. “The alarm will go off pretty soon anyway.”

A little over an hour later, I was
in the Sky High kitchen sipping the first coffee of the day when Julia arrived
shortly after five.

“Look at you!” she gushed. “I love
that sweater! Is it new?”

I glanced down at the Fair Isle
pullover that I’d plucked from my closet after showering. It was roomy,
colorful and clean, the ideal accomplice for the tan slacks I was wearing along
with my bright orange kitchen clogs.

“My parents brought it back from
Scotland,” I said. “They thought all three of us kids would look cute in
matching outfits.”

“How’d Brody feel about that?”

I rolled my eyes. “How do you
think? He
hated
it. The only surviving picture my father took that day
shows him squirming between Olivia and me with his tongue out.”

“How old was he at the time?”

I smiled. “Old enough to know
better. Probably fourteen or fifteen.”

Julia snickered as she shrugged off
her coat and grabbed an apron from the linen drawer.

“Looks like a fairly easy day,” I
said, glancing at the whiteboard on the wall. “Two pies for Bernice Layton, a
bundt cake for Mrs. Pendrake and three dozen scones for Java & Juice.”

“How are the new owners getting
along over there?” asked Julia. “Was it Brenda and Stu?”

“Close,” I said. “Brenda and Steve.
And they seem to be doing really well. Luckily, Pepper actually ran a pretty
smooth operation, so the books were in good order when they bought the shop.”

Java & Juice was a popular
Crescent Creek destination for anyone looking for coffee drinks, fresh fruit
smoothies and a selection of sweet and savory baked goods. The original owner,
a 60-year-old livewire named Pepper McIntosh, had become entangled in a bit of
criminal mischief a few months earlier that ended with convictions on a slew of
charges including kidnapping, armed assault and conspiracy.

“Did she have to sell it?” Julia
asked as she poured coffee into a mug. “I thought maybe she’d let the manager
run it while she was locked up.”

“That wasn’t really an option,” I
said. “The Federal Bureau of Prisons forbids anyone from being involved in
running a business while they’re behind bars. I guess she figured it’d be
easier to unload the shop and bank the profit.”

“Has anybody heard from Pepper?”

I shook my head. “I certainly
haven’t, but then I didn’t expect—”

The backdoor opened suddenly,
allowing Kyle Gallagher and a gust of icy air into the kitchen.

“Morning, Katie,” he said. “I
thought you’d be up, so I decided to stop by instead of calling.”

I frowned. “We’re always up at this
hour,” I said. “We open at seven, so…” I didn’t finish the thought because I
could tell he wanted to say something.

“I’m really sorry to ambush you
like this.” The look on his face blended remorse and anticipation. “And I’m
sorry for leaving in such a rush last night. But I’ve got to talk to somebody
to make sure that I don’t go off the deep end.”

“Should I leave you guys alone?”
Julia asked.

I glanced at her. “Have you two
met?”

She shook her head, but kept her
eyes on Kyle.

“Julia, this is Kyle Gallagher,” I
said. “He and Tipper have been—”

The smile on her face collapsed.
“Oh, my goodness! You’re the boyfriend. I’m
so
sorry to hear about
everything that’s going on.”

Kyle swallowed hard. “Thank you,
ma’am. I appreciate the kind words.”

One corner of Julia’s mouth
twitched. “Ma’am?” She crossed her arms with a theatrical flourish and stuck
out her lower lip. “Do I look super old this morning or something?”

“No, I just…” Kyle didn’t know if
she was kidding or not, so he hesitated and turned to me for direction.

“She’s joking,” I assured him. “But
I agree with her; we’re both sorry that you’re going through this.”

“Thanks, Kate. And…” He smiled at
Julia. “I’m sorry. What was it again?”

“Julia,” she said. “I hope they
find Tipper soon.”

His forehead creased with worry.
“So do we all.” He glanced at me. “Is there somewhere we can talk?”

Julia went back to her coffee. “Why
don’t you all use the office? Harper will be here shortly, so the dining room
wouldn’t be very private.”

“Good point, Jules. I’ll be back to
help set up as soon as I can.”

“Oh, wait a sec,” Kyle sputtered.
“I shouldn’t be disrupting your routine like this. I can come back later.”

“Don’t even think about it.” I
grabbed his elbow and tugged him toward the hallway. “I can multi-task like
nobody’s business.”

Once we were in my office with the
door closed, Kyle sat in a guest chair and I perched on the edge of the desk. I
started to ask him a question when he raised one hand.

“Hang on, Kate. I want to tell you
the real reason that I’m here.”

“Okay.”

“I think my brother’s behind the
kidnapping,” he said.

My mouth fell open. I suspected
that he had a bombshell to drop, but I didn’t think it would involve his
sibling.

“Uh, I’d say that’s…” I heard
myself mutter, even though my brain was whirring in overdrive. “…well, that’s
fairly incendiary, Kyle. And the next obvious question is: Why do you think
he’s responsible for Tipper’s abduction?”

He got up from the chair and began
pacing. Since the office wasn’t especially large and his stride was
considerable, it took less than a second or two for him to reach either end of
the room.

“Clark’s been living beyond his
means for quite a long while now,” Kyle explained in a dry, flat tone. “He
borrowed a few thousand from our parents. I gave him a loan, something around
eight grand. And he’s maxed out every credit card that he could get his hands
on.”

I’d worked plenty of cases in
Chicago that began with someone in need of a quick cash infusion. But I hadn’t
been involved in any situations that involved a man’s girlfriend being abducted
by his brother. I was considering the strange twist of fate when Kyle asked me
a question that mirrored the thoughts in my mind.

“The look on your face says a lot,
Kate,” he murmured in a low rasp. “I guess you see where I’m going with this,
right?”

I nodded, got up from the edge of
the desk and went behind it to sit down. “Yes, but why do you think Clark’s involved?”

“Ransom note on the air
fresheners,” he said. “In the actual case, it was written on the back of a
carryout menu from a Chinese restaurant. The kidnapper hung that on the
rearview mirror in the victim’s car with one of her hair ribbons. Whenever I
tell the story, I always change that detail to something else that most people
would have in their homes—playing cards, credit card statements, utility bills.
I do that because I’m not comfortable revealing some of the key details from
the actual crime.”

“Not even to your own brother?”

He shrugged. “I’m a creature of
habit. I don’t talk about the past all that often any more. But when I do, the
stories are always the same; I replace certain important items, like the
carryout menu, and I never use real names or locations.”

“To keep it discreet?”

“And out of respect for the victims
and the work I used to do,” he said. “DEA agents are dedicated to integrity,
truth and justice.” He stopped pacing and returned to the chair. “I know that
may sound like empty rhetoric, but it was how I used to conduct myself.”

“I don’t think anyone would argue
against that approach, Kyle. But I still don’t understand why you’re convinced
that Clark had something to do with Tipper’s abduction.”

He took a long, slow breath.
“Because I told my brother about my last case a few weeks ago. And it’s the
only time that I’ve replaced the Chinese menu with a ransom note written on a
bunch of air fresheners.”