Alibis and Amethysts (3 page)

After five minutes her curiosity finally demanded attention. Using the gate on the
far side of the house, she wandered around to the patio to see if Anastos was finished
interviewing Sierra yet. She found them sitting a few feet apart in the two webbed
folding chairs that made up the sum total of Sierra’s outdoor furniture. Frosty was
lying with his head tucked under Sierra’s chair as if he believed he was completely
hidden from all the strangers and tumult around him. It appeared he’d finally met
his match.

Anastos was sure taking a lot longer with Sierra than Brock had taken with her. Although
it could have been simply a matter of the detectives having different styles, it was
far more likely a result of the stormy history between Sierra and the deceased. It
was no secret around town that Peggy had been carrying a chip on her shoulder large
enough to transform even the Jolly Green Giant into Quasimodo.

Jaye gave the patio a wide berth and continued on to take a peek at the crime scene,
where things were moving along more quickly. The sheriff and his two-man crime scene
unit had arrived while she and Brock were talking in the car, and they’d set up floodlights
that carved an oasis of day out of the darkness.

Peggy’s remains had been placed in a black body bag and transferred to a gurney that
was being wheeled out through the gate under the direction of a man Jaye assumed was
the coroner. The crime scene investigators, along with Brock and the sheriff, were
slowly crossing the side yard, their shoulders touching, their heads down and their
eyes focused so intently on the ground that none of them seemed to notice she was
there. It didn’t take much crime savvy to figure out they were scouring the area for
clues—a speck of blood, a shred of cloth, anything that might help them piece together
what had happened there.

“Crap.” Brock stopped in his tracks, causing his colleagues to stop as well.

“What’s wrong?” the sheriff asked. “What is it?”

“Dog crap,” Brock grumbled, dragging his left foot along the ground.

Jaye choked back the laughter that was bubbling up her throat, the tension of the
night making the moment more comical than it otherwise would have been. In spite of
her best efforts, a small hiccup of a laugh got away from her, instantly drawing all
their eyes in her direction. Judging by their faces, no one else saw any cause for
amusement.

“This area is off-limits, Miss,” the sheriff said, his expression as steely as his
tone.

“Don’t go into the house either,” Brock added, hopping to keep his balance on one
foot while he checked to see if his shoe required further attention. “It still has
to be processed.”

Murmuring an apology, Jaye wandered back toward the patio, feeling like a weary seabird
with no place to land. She might be free to leave, but she had no intention of going
anywhere until she’d had a chance to speak to Sierra.

She was relieved to see that Anastos was finally on his feet. From a few of his words
that carried to her, he seemed to be delivering his version of the “don’t leave town”
advice she’d received. He nodded at Jaye as he strode past her.

“You okay?” Jaye asked, settling into the chair he’d vacated. In the amber glow of
the patio light, Sierra looked dazed.

“I could never kill anyone,” she said so softly that she might have been talking
to herself. Then her eyes focused on Jaye. “Cal suggested that maybe Peggy attacked
me, and I was just trying to defend myself when . . .,” her voice trailed off. “I
guess it makes sense from his point of view.”

“Sierra, you cannot allow people to put words in your mouth,” Jaye told her sternly,
“especially not the police.” She’d learned from personal experience that sometimes
you had to be firm with people in distress. Being too coddling or sympathetic often
fed into their emotions, causing them to fall apart faster. And Sierra needed to pull
herself together now.

Chapter 3

Jaye heaved a sigh of relief after hearing Sierra’s recap of her interview. Their
statements had been consistent with each other in all respects. Not surprising, given
that they were based on the same set of facts. Yet it would hardly have been the first
time jittery nerves scuttled the truth. The crime scene investigators had finished
going through the house, and the detectives had cleared Sierra to stay there, with
one caveat—Frosty wasn’t allowed in the yard where he could muck up clues that might
have been overlooked.

It was after one o’clock when Jaye finally returned home. She’d tried unsuccessfully
to talk Sierra into coming with her instead of spending the night alone. Although
there was only one bed in her apartment, Jaye swore she didn’t mind camping on the
floor. But Sierra had insisted she’d be fine at home with her pal Frosty to keep her
company. Besides, she’d added practically, if she took refuge with Jaye tonight, she’d
just find it harder to stay at home the next night. Jaye couldn’t argue with her reasoning,
which was impressive since Sierra hardly ever dipped her toes in the cool, clear waters
of logic.

Three o’clock came and went, and Jaye was still staring at the ceiling, the night’s
events replaying in a continuous loop in her mind. Her subconscious seemed determined
to find some scrap of information that had eluded her earlier and would now miraculously
help her make sense of Peggy’s sudden death. Or murder. Based on the facts as she
knew them, Peggy died after suffering an injury to her head that caused major blood
loss. Jaye had watched enough shows like CSI to know that once the heart stopped beating,
most of the bleeding stopped too. So based on the copious amounts of blood found around
Peggy’s head, the odds were against her having been killed in another location and
then dumped in Sierra’s yard. Peggy’s life had most likely ended where they’d found
her.

Jaye hoped she was wrong. She’d never been a suspect in a murder case, and she had
no desire to add that experience to the already troubled résumé of her life. On the
plus side, it would come in handy should she ever decide to write her autobiography.
It was no secret that murder sold. Unfortunately, being a suspect came with a lot
of worrisome baggage like arrest, trial, conviction, incarceration and maybe even
hanging. It occurred to Jaye that she didn’t know if Arizona had a death penalty or
what form that penalty might take. It wasn’t the first thing she’d thought to check
out when deciding to move there, but maybe it should have been.

And what about Sierra? If anyone had a legitimate cause for concern, she did. Not
only had she been locked in an adversarial relationship with the deceased, but the
deceased was found, well, deceased on her property. It didn’t matter that Sierra had
tried multiple times to extend the hand of friendship to Peggy only to have a few
fingers bitten off. At this point, the principal fact the police had to go on was
that Peggy was dead and Sierra wasn’t. Jaye’s last cogent thought before sleep finally
nabbed her and pulled her under was that Sierra was her only family and that she wasn’t
going to let anyone take her family away from her again.

***

The alarm didn’t stop ringing when Jaye hit the snooze button. As she surfaced from
the depths of sleep she understood why—the alarm clock wasn’t the culprit. In all
the confusion of the previous night, she’d forgotten to set it. The persistent ringing
was from the doorbell outside her shop, and the person leaning on it clearly had no
intentions of giving up and going away.

Sierra! Before the thought was fully formed, Jaye jumped out of bed and immediately
tumbled onto the thin, worn carpeting, her legs as tangled in the sheets as if she’d
been practicing a gymnastics routine in her sleep. She kicked off the linens, grabbed
her bathrobe out of the closet and ran down the stairs into her shop, pulling on the
robe as she went and hoping no early-morning walkers happened to be passing by. When
the owner of the old house had it transformed into a commercial property, he’d installed
extra-large windows in the front, great for attracting business, not so great for
thwarting gossipers.

She scooted behind the register counter, where the pad for the security alarm was
located, and tapped in the code to deactivate it. She was sprinting for the front
door when her left foot flew out from under her and sent her sprawling again, this
time on the less forgiving hardwood floor. She looked around, trying to figure out
what had tripped her, and was surprised to see a small wallet lying nearby. She didn’t
own one like it, and she hadn’t seen it when she’d come home last night. For that
matter it hadn’t been there when she’d left the shop yesterday to meet Sierra for
dinner.

Her visitor had given up on the bell and was now pounding on the door. Jaye pushed
herself to her feet, plucking up the wallet as she crossed the last few yards to the
door. She disengaged the deadbolt and was turning the knob when it dawned on her that
she didn’t actually know who was on the other side of the door. Peering out the windows
wouldn’t have helped. The door was slightly recessed, making the view from the windows
too oblique to see someone standing there. But at six fifteen in the morning who else
could it be? The police? a little voice in her head piped up. A journalist from the
local paper hoping to scoop an interview? Flowers from a secret admirer?

“Who’s there?” she called out, clamping down on her imagination.

“Seriously?”

There was no mistaking that voice. Jaye pulled the door open, and Sierra flew in,
glancing over her shoulder as if worried about being tailed.

“Please tell me you’re not on the lam,” Jaye said, trying to inject a bit of levity
into her tone, “because I don’t think I’d be any good as Clyde.” She closed and locked
the door behind her friend.

“You have nothing to worry about unless I change my name to Bonnie.” Sierra sounded
almost like her normal upbeat self. “What’s with the wallet?” she asked, “did you
think I was a girl scout selling cookies?”

“If only—I tripped over this thing on my way to the door.”

Sierra shrugged. “One of your customers must have dropped it yesterday.

“Then why didn’t I see it before this morning? I came through here twice last night,
and it was lying directly in my path between the alarm pad and the door.”

“You probably just stepped over it. You were certainly preoccupied enough when you
got home last night.”

Sierra was no doubt right, since the only other explanation was that the owner of
the wallet had broken into the shop, turned off the alarm, dropped the wallet on the
floor, reset the alarm and somehow relocked the door after leaving and taking nothing
of value.

Jaye frowned. “But if you lost your wallet, wouldn’t you try to get in touch with
every shop you’d been in?”

“I’m sure whoever lost it will notice it’s gone soon enough,” Sierra said, clearly
ready to table the subject. “Shouldn’t you be asking me why I’m here at dawn?”

“Okay, why are you here at dawn?” Jaye inquired, although there was only one reason
for her friend to have deviated from her normal work schedule.

“I’ve decided to be proactive about this whole dead Peggy business. I’m not going
to sit around and wait for the police to arrest me because they can’t come up with
a more likely suspect. Do you want in as my sidekick?”

“Too late—I’m already on the case.”

“Great, then we need to sit down and figure out where to begin. How about a cup of
Earl Grey?”

“You don’t have time for that,” Jaye said firmly. She took her friend by the shoulders
and turned her around so she was facing the door. “The best thing you can do is continue
on with your life as if Peggy’s death has no real impact on you. Get over to your
bakery and start pumping out the goodies.”

“Won’t that make me seem callous?”

“It’s going to make you seem like anyone else who hears some disturbing news but still
has to make a living. A big show of grief would send out the wrong signals, especially
since everyone knows how Peggy despised you. If you want to cut back on the smiling
for a few days, that would be fine.”

“But—”

“No buts. Go fill those detectives up with fat and carbs. I’ll start investigating
during my lunch hour. I swear I’ll call you if I need help.”

After she’d sent Sierra on her way, Jaye turned her attention to the wallet in her
hand. It was barely three by four with a little plastic window on the front of it
through which she could see a driver’s license. She slid the license out of its pocket
and stared at the photo of a young woman. Jaye couldn’t recall having seen her in
the shop the day before, but she’d been so busy at the register that she probably
wouldn’t have recognized most of the people who’d come in, especially if they hadn’t
bought anything. Focusing on an individual while ringing up their purchases usually
helped etch them into her memory.

According to the license, the wallet’s owner was Stacey Winston, twenty-three, who
hailed from Provo, Utah. Further inspection of the wallet yielded a small deck of
credit cards and forty dollars in cash. Not much to go on. Jaye figured she could
check a Utah directory, but even if Stacey had a listed landline the odds were she
was still away on vacation.

Before putting everything back in the wallet, Jaye shuffled through the credit cards
to see if she’d missed anything and realized that one of the plastic cards was actually
a hotel key card. Okay. All she had to do was call the Coronado Motor Lodge and ask
to be connected to Stacey’s room.

Stacey picked up on the second ring. Once Jaye introduced herself and explained that
she’d found the wallet, Stacey couldn’t thank her enough. “I’ve been going crazy looking
for it,” she said, her voice animated with relief. “Where did you say you found it?”

“On the floor in Crystal Clear—my crystal and gem shop,” Jaye replied.

There was a long pause. “But I didn’t go into any crystal stores yesterday,” Stacey
said finally. “In fact I didn’t go into any stores at all. My boyfriend and I spent
the day hiking.”

“Maybe someone stole it and tossed it away in my shop,” Jaye suggested, since there
was no point in arguing with the girl’s memory. “How much cash did you have in it?”

“Not much—forty dollars I think. Are all my credit cards there?”

“Well, the cash is still in it, but you’ll have to check for yourself to see if any
of your cards are missing.”

“Of course, how would you know?” Stacey said with a small, self-conscious laugh. “I’m
not thinking clearly. When can I come for the wallet?”

Jaye told her to come any time after nine and gave her directions. Then she ran back
upstairs, glad to have brightened someone’s day. And although solving the little mystery
of the wallet could probably have been accomplished by a five-year-old, she thought
it augured well for her success in the vastly more important investigation ahead.

She took a quick shower, changed into beige chinos and a lightweight brown sweater
and ate half an English muffin with orange marmalade. While she loofahed, dressed
and chewed, she compiled a mental list of how to go about finding Peggy’s killer.
The first question that had to be answered definitively was whether Peggy had died
of natural causes or, as Jaye believed, of man-made ones.

Since the shop was rarely busy before ten o’clock, she took a seat behind the main
counter that was situated in the center of the retail space and put in a call to the
sheriff’s office in Prescott. The woman who answered informed her in an icy tone that
the sheriff would release the cause of death after the medical examiner provided him
with that information. She hung up before Jaye could even say “thank you,” leaving
her to think that the woman was either being besieged with such calls or that she’d
been close to the deceased. She could hardly have been hired to interact with the
public if her attitude was always so charming.

Working as a free agent, Jaye didn’t have to wait for anyone to give her the green
light to get started. Besides, all she intended to do for now was stop by for a casual
chat with each of the other shopkeepers and take their temperature regarding their
colleague and her sudden demise. Since Sierra appeared to be the only one with a motive,
Jaye was determined to find someone else who also had a reason to be glad Peggy was
dead.

The bells she’d nailed to the shop’s door jingled merrily, announcing the first customer
of the day. Jaye remained where she was and called out a cheerful “hello” to the middle-aged
couple who’d walked in.

“Please feel free to look around. If there’s anything I can help you with, just let
me know.”

The woman smiled and thanked her, her eyes already dancing from display to display.
The man followed in her wake, clearly counting the minutes until he could suggest
leaving without starting an argument.

In the months since Jaye had opened her shop, she’d picked up some important sales
acumen. Most customers preferred to browse at their leisure without her hovering as
their “tour guide.” They generally spent less time in the shop and were less likely
to purchase anything when she injected herself into the process. Of course, there
was a small minority who came in with a specific purchase in mind or a limited amount
of time, but they generally weren’t shy about requesting her help.

“You were just being . . . enthusiastic,” Sierra had said when Jaye first mentioned
her belated epiphany. “You wanted to share your knowledge on the subject.”

“In other words, I was acting like a pompous ass.”

That’s when Sierra had had one of her high-wattage lightbulb moments—she’d come up
with the idea of giving miniseminars for people who wanted to learn more about “rocks
and stuff,” as she’d put it. Although Jaye had initially balked at the concept, her
First Friday talks wound up nearly doubling her business.