A Zest for Murder (Sky High Pies Cozy Mysteries Book 5) (9 page)

CHAPTER
22

Lila Belle’s obtuse attempt at
humor was on my mind as I drove home. I imagined that she did what plenty of
other people do when something unsettling happens—make light of the situation,
crack a joke to release the escalating tension and count their blessings that
the shadow of doom has darkened someone else’s doorstep.

As I pulled into the parking lot at
Sky High Pies, I saw someone sitting on the front porch of the old Victorian.
It was a man, dressed entirely in black. He was in one of the rocking chairs,
talking on his phone and making large, swooping gestures with one hand. After
leaving my car in its usual spot in back, I walked around to the porch. When I
realized that I’d never seen the stranger before, I greeted him with a friendly
wave.

“You must be Kate,” he said,
getting out of the chair.

“I am,” I answered, taking a close
look at the unexpected visitor. He was tall, probably a pinch over six feet,
with close-cropped dark hair, pale green eyes and a layer of scruff along his
jawline. “How can I help you?”

“My name is Kyle Gallagher.” His
smile was genuine and bright. “Trent Walsh suggested I get in touch with you.”

After several months at the helm of
the bakery café, I was accustomed to sudden swerves in my day. But the
surprising appearance of Tipper Hedge’s boyfriend was as far from a last-minute
pie order as you could get. As I started up the front steps, my phone whirred
in my hand. It was Trent, probably calling to let me know I should be expecting
a visit from the man currently standing in front of me.

“Deputy Chief Walsh?” I said,
quickly answering the call.

“Hey, Katie,” he said. “I wanted to
let you know that Kyle Gallagher turned up. And it looks like he’s got a rock
solid alibi for yesterday. He’d forgotten his wallet at Tipper’s earlier in the
day when she asked him for cash to tip the bartender that she’d hired.”

I looked up at the man on the
porch. He’d returned to his phone, staring intently at the screen while I was
on my call.

“By the time Gallagher realized
that he didn’t have the wallet,” Trent continued, “he was on the way to Denver
with his brother. He called Tipper’s, didn’t get an answer and left a message
asking her to look for it. He figured she was busy with the party, so the fact
that she didn’t answer or call back wasn’t a concern. I guess someone else
who’d heard the news reached him late last night to tell him. Kyle and his
brother drove immediately back to Crescent Creek.”

“Okay,” I said. “I guess that
explains yesterday.”

“I just got off the phone with him
about twenty minutes ago,” Trent added. “He should be there at—”

“At any moment?”

“Uh-huh.”

I smiled at Gallagher. He’d put
away the phone and was leaning on one of the white columns beside the top step.

“I’m looking at him right now,” I
said.

“Oh,” Trent said meekly. “Guess I
should’ve dialed your number straightaway instead of going down to the vending
machine.”

“It’s okay. But I should probably
talk to him and let you get back to the bag of Doritos or Cheetos you just
bought.”

Trent grunted. “Sunflower seeds,”
he said. “I’m trying to be healthy, Katie.”

“Good luck with that, big boy. I’ll
catch you later.”

I slipped the phone into my pocket,
climbed the stairs and reached out to shake Gallagher’s hand. “It’s nice to meet
you,” I said with a smile. “That was Trent calling to tell me to expect a visit
from you.”

Gallagher chuckled. “Right on time,
huh?”

I pulled out my keys to unlock the
front door. After he followed me into the dimly-lit entry hall, I asked if he
wanted something to drink.

“I’m okay. But thanks, Miss Reed. I
don’t want to be any trouble.”

His eyes were underscored with the
telltale dark circles that follow a long and sleepless night. I nodded at the
dining room and suggested he find a spot to sit while I walked my coat and
purse back to the office.

“Will do,” he said.

“And you can call me Kate,” I said.
“Tipper’s a dear friend. Even though you and I haven’t met, I’d feel weird if
you called me Miss Reed.”

“Works for me,” Gallagher said,
heading for a table by the front windows in the dining room.

After leaving my things in the
office, I went into the kitchen and grabbed a bottle of water from the walk-in.
When I pushed through the swinging door and stepped behind the front counter,
Gallagher was standing at the far end of the dining room. He seemed to be
watching something through the window.

“Kyle?”

He turned at the sound of his name.

“Sure you don’t want anything?”

“I’m sure, Kate.”

“So…” I walked around the counter,
crossed the room to where he stood and sat at a table. “What can I help you
with?”

He took the chair across from me.
“Trent mentioned that you used to be a private investigator.”

I nodded.

“Well, I know this…” He paused and
cleared his throat. “This is really awkward, Kate. I mean, I was with the DEA
for a long time, so I’ve done my share of investigations and the like. But the
thing is…” He glanced away, clenching his teeth with so much force that the
veins in his neck bulged. “Here’s the deal,” he said, turning back to me. “I
got shot on one of my last cases for the agency. Tore up my insides pretty
good, you know? And it also did a number on my head.”

The room was so quiet that I heard
the ice machine motor clicking away in the kitchen.

“Is that part of the reason you
retired?” I asked.

He nodded. “I went back to work
after the doctor released me, but something had changed. I couldn’t focus
properly. I was jumpy. One time, a couple of my buddies and I were searching a
warehouse and the door slammed behind us. I nearly flew out of my boots.”

He stopped to brush one hand across
his forehead. When he looked up again, I could see the unspoken truth in his
tired eyes. I’d talked to enough cops and detectives in Chicago during my days
as a PI that I recognized the look. Gallagher was embarrassed; the change in
his personality had left him feeling broken.

“How’re you doing now?” I asked
after a few moments of silence.

He shrugged. “Up until this
happened I was doing great. Meeting Tipper has been the best kind of medicine.
She accepts me for me. Know what I mean?”

I smiled. “That’s a very good
thing. I’m lucky enough to have something similar.”

“Yeah, Trent told me. I guess you
and he were an item way back in the day.”

“Way,
way
back,” I said. “It
was basically the antediluvian era.”

He frowned. “I don’t know what that
is.”

“It was a long time ago,” I said.
“We dated for about a minute in high school.”

“Gotcha,” he said.

“But I’m guessing you didn’t come
here to talk about me and Trent.”

He leaned toward the table and took
another deep breath. “You’re right. I wanted to ask if you’d be willing to help
me look for Tipper.”

CHAPTER
23

“Help you look for Tipper?” I
hesitated. “While Trent and his team are already hard at work on the case?”

Gallagher smiled, shifting in the
chair and crossing his legs casually. “I’ve heard about your reputation, Kate.
I know you’re out of the PI biz now, but I don’t know Crescent Creek. I don’t
know the players. And I don’t know where someone could be hiding Tipper.”

“Why do you think they’re still
here?” I asked.

His shoulders slumped. “She left a
message on my phone earlier when I was talking to Trent. I didn’t recognize the
name or number, so I didn’t answer.” He blinked hard a few times. “Man, I wish
that I could’ve known it was her. I’d give anything to hear her voice, to know
that she’s okay and safe.”

I was surprised by the tenderness
of his tone. It almost seemed like he was fighting the urge to cry; a rare
moment of the masculine, stoic reserve slipping to reveal softer emotions beneath
the surface.

“Trent’s a great cop,” I said. “And
so is everyone else on his team. They’re doing everything possible to find
Tipper.”

He nodded; the moment of gentleness
had passed. “I know that. But I’m not going to sit by the phone and wait. I
want to do something to help. I spent four hours at the station last night. And
another three this morning. To be perfectly honest, that was just frustrating
and useless. I don’t think me sitting in a room talking to detectives and cops
is a good use of my time.”

I watched his eyes as they darted
around the tabletop and then out the window. On one hand, he seemed calm and
controlled; on the other, there was a feral need in his core to take action.

“What would be?” I asked.

Gallagher pulled his gaze from the
window. “Sorry?”

“What’s the best thing you can do?”
I asked. “To use your time constructively?”

He nodded as he considered the
question. “Here I am,” he said. “Asking you to help me look for her. It’s like
I already told you, Kate; I don’t know the area. Since you’re a longtime local,
I just thought maybe…”

I smiled. “Maybe we could conduct a
separate search?”

“Sounds good to me.”

“I’d have to agree,” I said. “And,
to be perfectly honest, I’ve already started doing a little checking around
town.”

The declaration brought a crooked
smile to his face. “See? I knew we’d get along.”

“Did someone say that we wouldn’t?”

He shook his head. “Not at all.
It’s just…one time when Tipper was telling me about some of the people here in
town, I could tell she thought you and I would have a lot to talk about.”

“Because of your work in the DEA,”
I said. “And my ten years as a PI.”

“Right. And because she knows that
neither one of us are going to camp out on the sidelines and wait while
everybody else does the heavy lifting. We’re both gung-ho types, Kate. I mean,
you’re running this place now…” He looked over his shoulder at the empty dining
room. “And, even though it’s a far cry from being a private investigator, I can
see you’ve still got the fire in your eyes; just a fierce dedication to being
the best and doing your best.”

I smiled and thanked him for the
kind words. Then I asked him to tell me everything he could about how he and
Tipper spent the morning before she went missing. It took a few false starts,
but he eventually achieved a steady rhythm, thinking about the errands they ran
together, where they went and who they spoke with in town.

I wasn’t surprised by what he told
me; it was routine for someone preparing to host a party. After a quick
breakfast at Tipper’s house, they went to a few stores to buy food, liquor,
paper napkins, disposable plates and a special floral centerpiece that Tipper
had planned to use on the buffet table.

“And that’s it,” Kyle said about twenty
minutes after starting the recap. “We got the flowers, stopped at Uncommon
Grounds for a coffee and then went back to Tipper’s place. My brother was
waiting in the driveway when we got there. He and I had planned to leave for
Denver around two o’clock, so he was kind of mad that we were running late.
He’s been down south and was on his way back home.”

“How late were you?” I asked.

He shrugged. “Maybe fifteen
minutes. But my brother’s a fairly inflexible kind of guy. He’s been going
through a pretty rough patch lately, so I let most of his antics slide.”

There was a shift in Gallagher’s
eyes, a slight narrowing that suggested the casual remark about his sibling
masked how he really felt about the situation. Since I wanted to keep the focus
on Tipper, I decided not to pursue the subject. If Kyle mentioned it again, I
could always probe a bit deeper to learn more.

“And then? You and your brother
left Tipper at her house?”

He nodded. “Yeah. I can’t get that
picture out of my mind either, the one of her on the front porch. She’d been in
the living room, rearranging the things on the mantel. Clark—that’s my
brother—came back from using the restroom before we hit the road. I gave Tip a
big hug and kiss, she walked us to the front door and then we took off. He was
driving, so I looked back at her waving until we went around the bend.”

The pain in his voice was jagged
and dense; the razor-sharp sting of regret for leaving Tipper alone two days
earlier. According to the timeline Trent had shared with me in response to an
email I’d sent, Kyle and his brother left for Denver approximately forty-five
minutes before someone gained entry at Tipper’s and held her at gunpoint.
During the next twenty-four hours or so, they’d ransacked the house, vandalized
the walls in her bedroom with obscene graffiti and sent the fictitious text
explaining why Tipper and Kyle couldn’t make it to Blanche Speltzer’s for
dinner.

“Trent told me that you found the
dead woman in the kitchen,” Kyle said. “Is that right?”

I frowned. “She wasn’t dead when I
found her, but she’d lost quite a bit of blood. She was rushed to the hospital,
but died a short time later in surgery.”

“Do you know who she was?”

“Trent might, but I haven’t heard
anything on that. I’ve learned it’s best to wait. He’ll share whatever he can
when the time is right.”

Gallagher nodded. “Yeah. We all
know how that goes. Ongoing investigations aren’t the place for nosy ex-DEA
agents or PIs.”

I heard another subtle shift in his
tone. He sounded lighter, less rigid and tense.

“But that doesn’t mean we can’t
have a look around,” I said. “Or ask a few questions of our own.”

“You said that you’ve already done
some preliminary checking?”

“A little.”

“Anything helpful?”

“I don’t know yet. Why don’t we go
into the kitchen and I’ll fix us something to eat. I don’t know about you, but
I haven’t had much today.”

“Shouldn’t we be out there trying
to find Tipper?”

I followed his gaze through the
window. The sky was traced with gauzy streaks of pink and deep blue as the sun
slowly dipped toward the mountains.

“We will be,” I said. “But we can’t
do it on an empty stomach.”