Candy Apple Dead (21 page)

“No,” I said as patiently as I could. “I want you to get excited because he
knows
something.”

Karen rolled her eyes. “Great. So what do you think he knows?”

“I have no idea. Maybe he knows who killed Brandon. Maybe last night he picked up the scent of someone he recognized.”

“Or maybe he saw a squirrel,” Rachel suggested.

I glared at her. “That wasn’t it.”

“You’re sure about that?” Karen asked.

“I’m positive.”

“And you came to the conclusion that he’s in possession of this vital piece of information because he ran for a couple of blocks last night?”

She was trying my patience. I straightened a stack of one-pound assortments on a glass shelf and explained again. “It wasn’t that he ran. It was the
way
he ran.”

“Like he was chasing something,” Rachel chirped.

“Exactly.”

Karen wasn’t having any of it. “He’s a dog, Abby. His job description is ‘chase things.’ ”

“Not that dog.” I jerked my head toward the canine in question who lay on his stomach with his chin on his paws. That forlorn look had returned to his eyes, and his body language clearly said
despondent
. “Does that look like a dog that chases things for a living?”

“He’s resting.”

“He’s depressed. He barely eats or drinks anything, and he spends all day just lying there, staring at the door, and waiting. The only sign of life he’s shown at all was last night. I think he knows something about Brandon’s murder.”

Karen still hadn’t roused herself to actually work since we opened the store, but now she sipped her coffee, set the cup aside, and crossed to the baskets we keep filled with old-fashioned penny candy. “Okay, so let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that Max was chasing the murderer. That someone here in Paradise murdered Brandon, and Max knows about it. What are you going to do, line up everyone in town and let Max start sniffing?”

“The sarcasm isn’t helping,” I growled. “The point is that Max might just be able to identify the killer, and the next time he starts acting weird, I’m going to pay closer attention.”

“You do that,” Karen said, stuffing a few more grape sticks into the basket. “Do we have any idea what motive someone could have possibly had to kill Brandon in the first place?”

“That depends on who the murderer is, doesn’t it?” Rachel asked.

“Absolutely.”

Karen ran an absentminded glance across the root beer barrels. “And I suppose you have a theory about that, too?”

“Sort of.” I still wasn’t sure who to trust and who to suspect. Maybe I shouldn’t voice my suspicions in front of Rachel, but in that moment she seemed like my staunchest ally. “I think it was Chelsea or somebody she knows. I think that’s why she was so anxious to get rid of Max.”

“But why would Chelsea murder Brandon?” Rachel asked. “If she had a thing for him, wouldn’t she want to keep him around?”

“Maybe she was jealous. If all the gossip is true, Brandon wasn’t exactly the faithful type.”

Karen scooped peppermints into a container. “If Chelsea was that eager to get rid of the dog, why didn’t she just take him to the pound?”

“She was going to until I stopped her.”

“I thought you said she practically begged you to take him.”

“Well, she did. Although ‘begged’ might be too strong a word. But it
was
her idea.”

Rachel scooted her chair around so she could see us better. “If she was trying to get rid of Max because he can identify the killer, why would she suggest that you take him? It doesn’t make any sense.”

She had a point, but I defied anyone to tell me which parts of this case
did
make sense. “I never said I had all the details worked out,” I admitted.

Karen blurted out a laugh. “You don’t have
any
of the details worked out, and your source of information is a dog. You can’t tell the police to arrest Chelsea because the dog decided to run.”

Frustrated, I crossed to the window and looked outside. Gray clouds hugged the mountains and cast a depressing pall over the day. “Can’t you just admit that maybe I’m right?” I asked Karen. “Maybe he knows something about the person who murdered Brandon. Maybe Brandon knew that he was in danger of some kind. Maybe
that’s
why he sent Max home with Chelsea.”

Rachel tilted her head and regarded Max for a long moment. “Maybe Brandon didn’t send him home with Chelsea. Maybe she just wants everybody to think he did.”

I nearly tripped myself turning around again. “Say that again.”

“Maybe Chelsea just took Max, you know? Maybe Brandon didn’t have anything to do with it.”

Karen laughed and grabbed the feather duster—a sure sign that she was annoyed. “This is crazy, Abby. All this talk of murder. This is Paradise. People don’t commit murder here.”

“People commit murder everywhere,” I said. “It doesn’t matter where you live. If Chelsea’s not guilty, maybe Stella Farmer is. I told you what she said.”

Karen stopped working and turned to face me. “If you don’t mind me saying so, you have other things you should be worrying about.” She shook a finger at Rachel. “And you stop encouraging her.” She flicked dust from the top of the cash register and turned her attention back to me. “You need to return Maggie Sherwood’s phone calls and get your car fixed. Dana and Danielle are coming next weekend to help you make candied apples. You need to get ready for that. Halloween’s just around the corner, and Christmas is only a few weeks away, and Janice Smalley called to order three butterscotch bouquets for day after tomorrow. Brandon’s gone. There’s nothing you can do for him. But there are a hundred things you can, and should, be worrying about.”

Have I mentioned how much I love advice? Even knowing she had some valid points didn’t seem to matter. “Yeah, Brandon’s gone, but Wyatt’s not. I can’t just pour lollipops while the police haul him off to jail.”

“They can’t even find him. And what if you’re
not
helping him? What if you’re only making things worse?”

Suddenly angry, I jammed the lid on the lemon drops, shoved them back into place, and yanked the jar of gumdrops off the shelf. “Why would you say that?”

“Because, if you’ll forgive me for saying so, you don’t know what you’re doing. If you keep nosing around like this, you’re only going to make the police mad. That’s not going to help anybody.”

“I don’t care if I make the police mad, as long as they don’t railroad Wyatt into prison for something he didn’t do.”

Rachel leaned forward eagerly. “So what are you going to do?”

“I don’t know. Keep trying to find Wyatt. Maybe talk to Lucas Dumont and find out what he knows.”

“You think Lucas knows something?”

“He worked with Brandon. He’ll know stuff.”

“You’re delusional,” Karen warned. “Lucas comes from one of the richest families in Paradise. You’ll never get the contract for those gift baskets if you make enemies in the wrong places. You probably won’t even be able to renew your business license.”

Karen might be right, but Jawarski wasn’t going to listen to me unless I could produce something he couldn’t ignore. Besides, what harm could one or two little conversations do? If the tables had been turned, Wyatt would have done the same for me.

I was almost certain of it.

The very next chance I got, Max and I cruised up
Prospector Street, determined to talk to Lucas Dumont, no matter what Karen said. It had been a full week since I last saw Wyatt. If anyone else had been missing that long, I’d have been worried, but Wyatt knows how to handle himself, and he’s resourceful. None of his buddies had come to me acting worried, and that told me he was safe.

Which was good. Because I wanted to hurt him.

I’d looked everywhere I could think of except for one place—but to get to it, I had to go through Charlie Stackhouse, Wyatt’s oldest friend. I’ve known Charlie since I was a kid, but I haven’t seen him in years. I know he and Wyatt are still friends because Wyatt’s a creature of habit, and Charlie’s notoriously loyal—and because I’d heard Wyatt say something about Charlie a few weeks ago.

The two of them had gone to school together, graduated the same year, and then married within a few months of each other. Two peas in a pod, they’d trotted down the road to Harrison Rifle Works and were hired on at the plant on the very same day. Wyatt still worked there today. He’d been moving steadily up the organizational chart to upper middle-management.

A few years back, after inheriting money from his grand-father, Charlie had traded in life at the factory for life on the river. He’d purchased a little land and opened Sage Fork Outfitters. Since then, his business had grown from a few fly-fishing trips in the summer months to guided tour service for every kind of hunting imaginable, scenic tours of the Rockies, and snowmobile excursions in the winter months. He’d even been talking about adding an annual fishing trip in the Bahamas to the lineup. I figured he’d probably pull that off like he did everything else.

Charlie keeps a handful of rustic cabins geared up and ready for clients who want a place to stay while they’re in town. Jawarski had probably already checked there, but I was betting he didn’t know about Grandpa Stackhouse’s old cabin at the top of that mountain. They hadn’t used it much in recent years, but when they were boys Wyatt and Charlie had practically lived there during the summer months.

With Charlie’s help, Wyatt could probably hole up there for weeks—maybe even months.

I drove out of town on the old mine road and pulled into the parking lot at Sage Fork Outfitters twenty minutes later. I’d heard all about this new location when Charlie moved here, but I hadn’t paid much attention at the time, and I hadn’t been here since I came back to town. You can only process so much at one time.

After coaxing Max out of the Jetta, I looped his leash around the trunk of a nearby aspen and climbed the steps onto the long wooden porch that stretched from one end of the building to the other. It’s a long, low building carefully constructed to look as if it’s been around forever. A handful of chairs had been positioned in inviting conversational groupings, probably by Nora, Charlie’s wife. Charlie wouldn’t think of such a thing.

I could imagine Wyatt and his buddies swapping tales here after a successful hunt. Today, the porch was deserted.

The breeze set flyers tacked onto a large bulletin board near the door fluttering. I gave them a cursory glance, but the legislation of turkey decoys and the ongoing struggle of the hunter with the landowner don’t really interest me.

Out of habit, I wiped my feet on the mat before letting myself inside. The screen door banged shut behind me, and Nora Stackhouse glanced up from behind the counter with a big smile. I was glad to see her and, under the circumstances, she looked surprisingly pleased to see me. That must mean that Wyatt wasn’t causing them too much grief.

Nora had gone through school a couple of years ahead of me, but we only really knew each other because of the men in our lives. She’d always been petite, but she seemed thinner than I remembered. Her short, dark hair is beginning to turn gray, and smile lines radiate out from her eyes, even when she’s not smiling. I guess the years get to all of us eventually.

She pushed her work aside and leaned her arms on the counter. It was a friendly gesture that relieved some of the tension I’d been feeling. “Abby? Well, this is a surprise. I was going to stop in and see
you
in a couple of days.”

“Oh? Any special reason?”

“Christmas. Charlie and I always order the large confection assortment for special clients at the holidays. I hope you’re still planning on making them even though Grace is gone.”

“I’m not planning on making any changes at Divinity,” I assured her. “I’m still trying to find my feet and trying to figure out why Aunt Grace left the place to me instead of someone else.”

“Don’t be silly. Who else would she have left it to?”

“One of the other cousins. Karen, maybe. Or even Wyatt. They both stayed close to home. Dwight has a degree in business. Mimi loved the store as much as I did when we were kids . . .”

“Yes, but Mimi has dollar signs in her eyes. She’s always seen that store as the means to an end, and with that kind of attitude the store wouldn’t last long. Grace knew that. And Dwight might have a degree in business, but he has no heart. Not the kind that store needs.” Nora shook her head firmly. “He would have come in there with a bulldozer and changed everything. No, Grace left the business to the right person. You’re the only one who’ll treat it the way she would have.”

“I appreciate the vote of confidence,” I said. “I just hope I can live up to it.”

“Don’t worry so much. Just let instinct guide you, and you’ll be fine. So what brings you here, anyway?”

“This and that. Is Charlie around?”