Candy Apple Dead (15 page)

“I was upset,” I explained.

“Did it ever occur to you that that might not be the best time to get behind the wheel?”

“I didn’t think about that. I just want to get out of here—” I cut myself off before I could say anything about Wyatt and finished with a lame, “—and back to the store.”

“The store?” Jawarski looked skeptical. “You have some kind of candy emergency going on down there?”

He really was unlikable. I muttered a sullen, “No.”

“You’re still trying to protect your brother?”

“My brother doesn’t need protection.”

“Ah. I see. You still don’t think he did it.”

“No, I do not.”

“Well, I’m sorry, Ms. Shaw, but the evidence is piling up.”

“Evidence that Wyatt murdered Brandon?”

Jawarski dipped his massive head.

“I don’t believe it.”

He shrugged that set of broad, rain-drenched shoulders. “As long as the district attorney and a jury believe it, that’s all I need.”

I had the almost irresistible urge to belt him, but I figured that wouldn’t do much to help Wyatt. Or me. I balled my hands into fists and dug fingernails into my palms so hard I wouldn’t have been surprised to find out I’d drawn blood. “Do you even care about finding the truth, or are you just on a witch-hunt?”

“Of course I’m after the truth. I’m hot on its trail.”

“I’ll bet you are. What kind of evidence do you have against my brother?”

“Enough. He isn’t helping his case any by refusing to talk with me.”

Even I knew that avoiding the police was a stupid move. “You haven’t talked to him yet?”

“Not for lack of trying. I came here tonight because I had reason to believe he would be here at eight o’clock.” He shot a pointed look at the clock, then zapped me with the same look. “Obviously, he’s changed his mind.”

“The only evidence you could possibly have against Wyatt is circumstantial. That doesn’t mean a whole lot in a case like this. You could probably find as much evidence on anyone else in town if you looked hard enough.”

“I doubt that.”

“Have you tried? What about your original theory that Brandon set the fire himself? What happened to that?”

“You told me yourself that it was impossible.”

“You stopped pursuing that idea because I said to? In that case, stop trying to prove Wyatt guilty.”

He actually laughed—almost. It was really more like a curl of the lip, but it made him look almost human. “So now you
want
Brandon to be the one who set the fire?”

Better him than Wyatt, I guess. I almost said so aloud, but I couldn’t. “It wasn’t either of them. Wyatt’s not a murderer, and Brandon wasn’t facing some kind of ruin that drove him to arson. I wish you’d at least consider the possibility that someone else is guilty.”

He curved his lip again. “For the record, Ms. Shaw, you really don’t know what I’m considering, do you? I understand that you believe someone else is responsible for the fire and the death of Mr. Mills, but what you believe doesn’t do me a whole lot of good. Unless you can prove your theories, that’s all they are.”

“Proving that somebody didn’t do a thing isn’t exactly easy,” I pointed out. “I mean Brandon is—He
is
. . . dead.” I forced my emotions aside and tried to remain logical. Getting emotional wouldn’t accomplish anything. “And there was a fire. And we know that
somebody
set it. I don’t know how to prove Wyatt
didn’t
do it without proving that someone else did.”

Jawarski inclined his head an inch or two.

“What about the dog?” Elizabeth asked from the doorway.

I jumped at the sound of her voice. Jawarski looked equally startled. And confused. “You think the dog set the fire?” he asked.

Elizabeth rolled her eyes. “Of course not. But don’t you think it’s strange that he wasn’t with Brandon at the time?”

In all the excitement I’d forgotten about Max, but Elizabeth was right. Brandon had never gone anywhere without him. It had never occurred to me that he might not have been with Brandon that night. “If he wasn’t with Brandon,” I said, “where was he?”

“Across town with Chelsea Jenkins.”

It took a second for that to sink in. I shot a glance at Jawarski, but he was no help. “He was
what
? ” I demanded.

“Across town at Chelsea Jenkins’s apartment.” Elizabeth found some
con queso
dip in the refrigerator and pushed it toward me. “I talked to her this morning, and she told me she has him.”

I dragged the jar closer and plunged a chip into the cheese dip. I didn’t let myself ask why Elizabeth had been chatting with Chelsea. I was afraid she might tell me. “Did she say how she got him?”

“Only that Brandon asked her to watch him.”

“Impossible. When Brandon mountain-biked, Max ran beside him. When he dated, Max chaperoned. I never knew Brandon to leave Max with someone else. Not for any reason. If Chelsea has him . . .” My brain went into high gear, trying to process all of this at once. Chelsea was young, but to the extent Brandon had a right arm at the store, she’d been it. Even so, she’d never been in charge of Max. At least not that I knew about. True, I’d learned quite a few things in the past couple of days that I hadn’t known before, but I could more easily imagine Brandon trying to sleep with my sister-in-law than I could believe him asking Chelsea to take Max somewhere.

So why
did
Chelsea have Max? Was she capable of arson? Of murder? Did she even have a motive? Were a couple of bounced payroll checks enough?

The doorbell rang, announcing the arrival of the sheriff’s deputy, putting everything else on hold. We trooped onto the porch, answered questions, and filled out paperwork while the rain slowed and eventually stopped. It took so long, it was dark by the time the deputy wrote out a ticket, which I accepted with as much dignity as I could muster.

While Elizabeth, Jawarski, and the deputy looked on, I put my car in gear and backed carefully out of the driveway. I’d lost a taillight in the accident, and my rear bumper was hanging at an angle as I rolled away. All in all, not my best night, but I wasn’t worried about the ticket, the damage to my car, or even the increasing grumble coming from my stomach.

All I could think about was Chelsea Jenkins—and Max.

“. . . I don’t know what that girl was thinking,”
Karen said, pulling a box of lemon drops from the supply cupboard. “I’ve told her over and over again, make sure you lock the door behind you when you come in from school. Even Paradise isn’t completely safe anymore. Wouldn’t you think an eleven-year-old girl would be just a little nervous after there’s been a murder in the neighborhood?”

I nodded, only half-listening to the chatter that had been running nonstop for the past two hours. I love Karen. Really. She’s my cousin, and she’s saved my hide more than once in the past six months. She’s also the closest thing I have to a sister. But I don’t understand the need to let every single thought that passes through her head slip out from between her lips.

She stopped working and turned to look at me. “Well, wouldn’t you?”

Apparently, she expected an answer this time. Who knew? Most of the morning’s nonstop “conversation” hadn’t needed any input from me—a good thing since I’d been too busy puzzling about how Chelsea had ended up with Max and wondering if Jawarski had talked to her yet.

When Karen gave an exaggerated sigh, I met her gaze and tried to look connected. “Paige is young. Maybe she doesn’t really understand what happened.”

“Oh, she understands all right.” Karen shoved the box at me and turned back to rummage for more. “Sergio and I had a long talk with her about it, and she fully comprehends that Brandon has been killed. She just doesn’t think that murder is any big deal, and do you know why?” She whipped around again, this time holding a box of licorice pastels. My brief input into the conversation was no longer required. “Television, that’s what’s behind it. She sees so much violence and death on the damn boob tube, she’s immune to it. I swear I’m going to have Sergio get rid of the TV for good. This weekend.”

I nodded and scooped lemon drops into the gift basket I was filling. I’d always thought of Chelsea Jenkins as sort of a dim bulb, but what if I’d been wrong?

“I mean it,” Karen warned, watching my reaction carefully. “Out it goes.” Closing the storage room door with a bang, she came to stand in front of me, hands on hips, round face puckered by a deep, disapproving scowl. “All right, what is it?”

“What’s what?”

“What has you so distracted this morning? You’ve hardly heard a word I’ve said. So what are you thinking about? The fire again?”

“In a way,” I admitted. “What do you know about Chelsea Jenkins?”

“About Chelsea?” Looking intrigued, Karen rescued a couple of pecan delights from the cooling tray and handed one to me. “She’s an odd girl, but I’ve told you that before. Why are you asking now?”

“Do you think she’s capable of murder?”

Karen recoiled slightly. “Chelsea? Are you serious?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know, but Elizabeth says that Chelsea has Brandon’s dog. No matter how hard I try, I can’t make that make sense to me.”

Stern-faced, Karen sat across from me. “Why does it have to make sense to you?”

I nibbled at one edge of the candy and spent a few seconds savoring the buttery taste on my tongue. “Because Wyatt’s in trouble,” I said at last, “and
something
about this whole stupid mess needs to make sense before he’s out of trouble again.”

“I understand that, but it’s not your job to get him out of trouble.”

“Who else will do it if I don’t?”

Impatience flashed across Karen’s face. “Oh, I don’t know, maybe the police. Last time I looked, investigating murder fell under their jurisdiction.”

“Has it escaped your notice that the police think he’s guilty?”

“They think it’s possible,” Karen corrected me. She shifted, hit the table with her knee, and set a stack of air-tight containers filled with peanut brittle teetering. “But that doesn’t mean they’ve stopped investigating.”

Since Karen didn’t notice, I leaned up to steady the brittle before it fell. “You don’t know that. Have you heard one other person named as a suspect? I sure haven’t.”

“No, but I haven’t spent a lot of time talking to the police about the case, either.” She uncapped a container and snitched a piece of brittle. If we kept eating inventory at this rate, neither of us would fit into a thing in our closets. “Look,” she said, “I understand that you’re worried about Wyatt, but getting involved in a murder investigation just isn’t something normal, sane people do.”

“I know that. And if my brother wasn’t the only suspect, believe me, I wouldn’t go anywhere near the case. But he is. Frankly, I’m surprised that you aren’t as eager to clear his name as I am. You have children to think about. It won’t do them any good to have a convicted felon in the family.”

Karen’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “That’s playing dirty. Of course I want Wyatt cleared, and not just for the kids’ sake. I’m just worried about how involved you’re getting, that’s all. I mean, it’s not as if you know what you’re doing.”

“I know how to ask questions.”

Karen’s face clouded with irritation. “Tracking down a murderer isn’t like making candy, Abby. There’s no recipe to follow, and if you make a mistake, you can’t just toss the mess into the trash.”

More than a little irritated myself, I waved away her objections. “I haven’t always needed to follow a recipe to get through the day,” I reminded her sharply.

“That’s true. But just look how your life turned out then.”

She couldn’t have hurt me more if she’d slapped me. I moved the peanut brittle out of her reach and dumped pastels into the gift basket in front of me. “Are you going to answer my question or not?”

“And encourage you? Not a chance.”

“Come on, Karen. Just tell me what you know about Chelsea Jenkins. I promise I won’t get myself into some kind of trouble. I just want to know why Brandon left his dog with her, that’s all. And don’t tell me you don’t know, because I won’t believe you. You know everything.”

“Not everything,” she said, but it was a token protest only. The twinkle of pleasure in her eyes left no doubt in my mind.

“Okay, then, tell me what you do know. She’s not from around here originally, even I know that.”

“No, she’s not. If I remember right, she moved here shortly after Brandon did.”

“Do you know where she’s from?”

“Somewhere in the Midwest, I think. Illinois, maybe?” Wrinkles creased Karen’s forehead. “I really don’t know a lot about her, Abby. That’s the truth. Do you seriously think she might have started the fire?”

“I think it’s possible.”

“But why?”

“That,” I admitted, “is the million-dollar question. Do you know where she lives?”