COZY MYSTERY: Trail Mix Murder: A Cozy Mystery in the Mountains (Book 2) (7 page)

Victoria knew that she’d have to go offer her condolences to Declan sooner or later. What she didn’t expect was to have him show up at her café that very afternoon.

The entire café seemed to become alert as the door jangled and he walked in, looking very somber in a dark suit with a light blue shirt and a black tie.

“Coffee, please.” Declan murmured, keeping his head down.

“It’s on the house,” Victoria said, handing him a cup. She brought out a slice of her key-lime pie and placed it next to the coffee. “That too.” She said.

Declan bit his lip and drank his coffee silently.

Someone came up behind him and put a hand on his shoulder. It was Adam Driver, with Steve Boonbury next to him.

“Declan,” Adam said. “We just want to say we’re very sorry for your loss.”

Declan made no motion of acknowledging Adam’s statement. He drank his coffee and looked blankly ahead of him, lost in thoughts.

“Declan?” Adam squeezed his shoulder. “You alright, man? We’re here for you if you need anything.”

“How about peace and quiet?” Declan growled.

“Sorry.” Adam raised his hands and backed away. “I understand you’re grieving...”

“No!” Declan said. “No, you don’t understand. All of you smug, insipid folk simply don’t understand.” He turned around in his seat and faced them. “You think I don’t know what you whisper about me? You think I don’t know what you think? I know it all. You’re hypocrites, the lot of you. Vultures. You believe I murdered her for the money. I know you do. Idiots! I loved that woman. Yes, part of me loved her for her money and her ability to give me a good life but I loved LeeLee more than any of you two-bit townspeople love your two-bit wives!”

“Alright, Declan, you might want to calm down.” Victoria said, “I’ve got a room upstairs if you want to collect yourself.”

“I don’t want to collect myself,” Declan said, jumping up. “I want to...I want to kill someone! I want to put my hands around someone’s throat and squeeze. I was happy, finally, for the first time in my life, I was happy and some rotten, vile, maniac took my happiness away from me. I lost everything when I lost LeeLee.”

“You didn’t lose your friends,” Victoria said. “I know that we like to gossip in this town but when you look into our hearts you’ll find that every offer for help that is extended to you comes from love and sincerity. You’re part of our community even if you only did live here six months. We’re all sorry for your loss, truly. We’ve all lost people close to us, so we know that right now you must feel raw and battered.”

“I feel… tattered.” Declan said. “Like an old book, that’s starting to come apart. Those reporters are outside my house day and night. They’ve even followed me here. Last night someone asked me to comment on whether LeeLee had any surviving sons or daughters! I told them no, of course not! You know what that reporter did? She showed me a paper saying that LeeLee had once had a daughter that she gave up for adoption.”

Steve Boonsbury looked at Adam, and Victoria could read the thought that passed through both their minds. A daughter?

“LeeLee had a daughter?” Victoria asked Declan.

“I don’t know,” Declan said. “I don’t care either. She lived a long and complicated life. She broke her own heart several times and she broke other hearts all the time. But she was mature now, and she gave me the kind of love I needed. She and I had a huge age gap, I know, but love can connect two people no matter the age. I didn’t care about her age. But that’s all the reporters care about. I’m nearly thirty, but they make it sound like I’m some impressionable teenager and she seduced me half against my will. Those are the ones that are sympathetic to me. The rest make it sound like I’m unrepentant...”

“Declan, you need to stop listening to them,” Victoria said. “You have enough grief in your heart. Focus on that for now. Don’t allow the harsh words of others to poison your grief.”

“I tell myself that,” Declan said, with tears in his eyes. “I tell myself that, but I just don’t know. It hurts me. It stings me that the world despises me.”

Corporal Jager entered the café, and the attention of the crowd shifted immediately to him. He looked around the room, and then caught Victoria’s eye. He gave her a small nod as hello, then walked over and sat down next to Declan.

“Declan.” He said. “George and I were going through some documents and we’d like to invite you down to the station again. I’m sorry if this is a bad time. You can call your lawyers down if you like.”

Declan’s shoulders slumped even more. “What’s the point?” He asked. “Just throw me in jail and be done with it. I don’t want to live without her.”

“I understand that you feel lost and upset.” Randolf put a hand on his shoulder. “But this is just a simple questioning. It’s routine. There’s no interrogation and we don’t plan to arrest you. Please don’t worry.”

“I’ll come along quietly,” Declan said, draining his cup of coffee. “If only because it’s as good a place as another. I think I might sleep better in a jail cell than in that haunted mansion I used to call home.” Dragging his feet, Declan left after Corporal Jager, leaving behind a few dollars to pay for his coffee and pie.

There were murmurs as Declan left, and Victoria noted that there were a lot of pitying looks thrown in his direction. If the mood in the morning had been to condemn Declan, the mood had certainly changed now. Almost everyone in the café seemed to feel personally responsible for his grief. Victoria guessed that some of the people who had called him names were now feeling especially guilty for doing so.

“Interesting.” Steve Boonbury said, sliding into the counter seat. “I’d like another coffee, I think.”

“Me too.” Adam Denner sat beside him. “Well, what did you think of that, Victoria?”

“I felt bad for him.” She said. “Poor man. He’s got quite a lot to deal with, and he seemed very genuinely emotional.”

“Of course, he did,” Steve said. “You know, I was working on a mosaic for LeeLee’s party, right?”

“Yes. A very good one too.”

“Thanks,” Steve said. “Well, the mosaic required a lot of planning, so I got quite comfortable wandering in and out of their house. Declan and I became somewhat friendly too.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“Well, we did. He told me a lot about his own past, you know. That he’d spent his early twenties in Hollywood, for example, doing a day job as a waiter and studying drama and theater at night.”

“He was an actor?” Victoria said, surprised. “Well, I suppose he does have the good looks of one.”

“He had talent too, I think,” Steve said. “Declan told me he had worked in two different movies that won him local awards. Unfortunately, though he acted well, both movies themselves were terrible and he didn’t quite have a career.”

“If he was telling the truth, that should be easy enough to verify,” Adam said. “But why do you bring it up, Steve?”

“Because the entire time he was here, I was watching him.” Steve said, “And I think Declan is a lot smarter than we give him credit for. He disarmed us all. He made us feel sorry for him, and then he made us want to root for him as the underdog.”

“What are you saying?” Adam asked.

“That I wonder how much his roots as an actor helped him with that little charade.”

“Charade? I thought he looked genuinely grief-struck.” Adam said.

“I thought not,” Steve said. “He looked and sounded like a very good actor giving a monolog.”

Victoria considered this. No, what Steve said didn’t feel right. After all, she had looked into Declan’s eyes, and he seemed convincingly upset and unhappy about LeeLee’s death.

Yet…

Yet she wondered whether a good enough actor might be able to fake that like Steve said.

“How about that other bit, though?” Adam asked. “That’s what I want to know more about.”

“What other bit?” Steve looked confused.

“LeeLee’s daughter!” Adam said. “Declan casually slipped it into his speech but he mentioned that one of the reporters had found out that LeeLee had given a daughter up for adoption a long time ago. If LeeLee did have a biological daughter, who would inherit her estate?”

“So the murders are linked, then?” Steve said, considering. “I always thought that the red-coated girl was just a mentally disturbed tourist who somehow snuck into the party and then killed herself. I still think that.”

“No,” Victoria said. “I told this to Corporal Jager too, and he agreed with me. Someone local had to show that girl how to get up that trail. It’s too well hidden for her to just have stumbled on it. Besides which, she had no car and she didn’t have the proper shoes. How did she just blunder her way up there? No, I think it was a murder. That trail is very rarely used and if the rockslide hadn’t occurred the night before, I might never even have seen her body given the steep cliff in that area.”

“Alright. Fine.” Steve said. “Maybe it’s a murder instead. But why would it be connected to LeeLee?”

“Because the girl in the red coat was LeeLee’s biological daughter!” Adam said excitedly. “That has to be the case, doesn’t it? LeeLee abandoned her at birth, and now this girl came back into her life. Perhaps LeeLee murdered the girl herself, and then in a fit of unhappiness, killed herself the next week…”

“If what you’re saying is true and the girl was LeeLee’s daughter…” Steve said, “And mind you that’s a really big if. Even then it makes more sense that Declan committed the crime. Maybe he figured out she was LeeLee’s daughter somehow and killed her, then he panicked and killed LeeLee too.”

“It’s a possibility.” Adam conceded. “Though after the way, he sobbed today I can’t find it in my heart to doubt him. Maybe it is best if we just let the police continue their investigation without making up our own theories.”

Victoria couldn’t sleep that night.

Threads of conversation kept spilling over in her brain and joining other, unrelated thoughts. She thought back to everything that had occurred since the day she found the red-coated girl’s body. That was the beginning of this whole affair, wasn’t it?

No. Victoria told herself. That was inaccurate. The murder of the red coated girl wasn’t the beginning. From the point of view of the murderer and the girl, it was, in fact, an end. There was a thread stretching behind that point, a thread which, followed to its true beginnings, would reveal the motive and the true killer of the girl.

But how about LeeLee’s death, then? Victoria wondered. In her mind, she imagined a tape, with the magnetic strip running backward, showing every detail of LeeLee’s life. The death, and before that, the conversation with Corporal Jager, the party, and before that… a complicated, diverse life.

Did the two threads intersect at any point in the past? They must, Victoria knew. That was the only way for it all to make sense.

Or were her assumptions making the case foggier? What had George said the other day? That Randolf didn’t like to make assumptions early in the case because they led to incorrect theories. Which led to crucial evidence being ignored because it didn’t fit the theory. Which led to cases going unsolved.

What assumptions was she making?

First, of course, was the assumption that the red coat girl and LeeLee were both murdered. Second, was the assumption that the murders were connected in some way. The fact that two unusual events had happened this close to one another didn’t really mean they were connected.

Victoria squinted, trying to think of the case from this angle. What if the red coat girl had never been found? Would LeeLee even have been dead? If she had been killed, as a standalone event, what would the assumptions have been?

Suicide, or Declan killing her. Those would have been the leading theories, Victoria realized.

But Declan was right. LeeLee had lived a complicated, diverse life. She had just thrown a lavish birthday party, where she had invited many powerful men and women.

What was the first assumption LeeLee herself had made when Randolf had asked her about the red coat girl? LeeLee had immediately dismissed her as a spy, saying that she must have been blackmailing one of the senators.

Why had LeeLee’s mind jumped to blackmail as a conclusion? Was there a possibility, however slim, that LeeLee herself had been blackmailing someone at that party?

Thinking carefully, Victoria tried to go over the whole scene again, the last time she had seen LeeLee alive. She had arrived at LeeLee’s house, spoken to Karen and Steve, then gone into an adjacent room where Randolf was talking to LeeLee and Declan together.

What had LeeLee said then? There was some talk of coats, and then... Victoria jumped up suddenly. A CD! LeeLee had talked about a missing CD!

Putting on her jeans and a sweater, Victoria crept out of the house, suddenly, desperately needing a walk. She walked feverishly, her mind going over and over what she was formulating.

Before she knew it, her steps had led her to a small yellow cottage with a sloping roof and navy blue window shutters. A chimney puffed on the rooftop, and a single light was on in the upper left room. Entering the gate, she knocked on the door.

It was an unusual little house. Funny to think that the NCO of their local RCMP detachment lived in a house that would have better suited a sweet witch in some fairytale. Or perhaps an elf.

Randolf came down, his hair sticking up from his head, stubble covering his cheeks. He was dressed in basketball shorts and a gray T-shirt and held a pistol in his hand.

“Oh.” He holstered the pistol when he saw who it was.

“Do you always greet guests like this?” Victoria asked.

“Only if they come knocking on my door at 2 am at night.” He said. “Why are you here, Victoria?”

“You were awake anyway,” Victoria said. “Weren’t you?”

“There you go, answering my questions with a question. You don’t do this to everybody, you know.” Randolf said. “I must be special for you.”

“Don’t flatter yourself.” Victoria headed to the kitchen, “I don’t think I’ll be sleeping tonight, and I have to be up by five to start baking the bread and prepping.”

“Hmm,” Randolf said.

“So I needed a partner for my insomnia, and your light just happened to be on.”

“So you accidentally wandered over to my house at 2:00 a.m., saw my light on, and decided to come talk?” He asked.

“Well… no.” Victoria said. “I did come to see you.”

“Why?” He asked, waiting with a smile.

“The CD.” She said. “At LeeLee’s house, she’d mentioned a CD was missing from her house. A CD she wanted to send to vogue.”

Randolf nodded, remembering vaguely. “What about it?”

“Did you ever find it?” Victoria asked.

Randolf scratched his chin. “I didn’t think to look for the original CD, to be honest. She said it was just a CD about the party being made, wasn’t it? I did get a copy from her videographer.”

“Can we watch it?” Victoria asked, excited.

Randolf got out his laptop and put the CD in. “Sure, though it’s a very unusual request to make this late at night.”

“I just thought… maybe there was something in the CD? Something the murderer didn’t want anyone else to see? That’s why it was missing.”

“Let’s have a look,” Randolf said. “I’m getting a little urge for a snack too. Want me to make popcorn?”

“How about a nice omelet and some tomato bread instead?” Victoria asked, opening his fridge and examining the contents. She brought out a tomato, sliced it in half, and poured salt and garlic powder on it.

“What’s that for?” Randolf asked, looking interested.

“Pan con Tomate.” She said. “Or tomato bread, if you want to be less fancy. I had it all the time when I went to Spain with Michael. It transforms boring old toast into pure delight.” Gripping the tomato with one hand, she grated it over the toast and then repeated on the other toast. Pulling the cutting board towards her, she chopped up some parsley, and sprinkled it on the toast, then cut them into thirds.

“That does look delicious,” Randolf said.

Efficiently, Victoria was now pouring the eggs into a saucepan and whisking them in it. “It’s a little unorthodox, but I hate using an extra container to whip the eggs when I can just do it in the pan.” She explained.

“Hey, I just eat em, they don’t have to be pretty,” Randolf said with a smile. He reached behind her and got out some glasses, and opened up a canister of orange juice. “Since we’re having an early breakfast, might as well break this out too.”

Working like this, side by side in his small kitchen felt like one of the most intimate things he’d ever done with a woman, Randolf thought. It felt natural and right. Like their place was right beside each other. The air was thick and warm, the entire atmosphere making his house feel like a home for the first time.

“That bread looks delicious.” He said. “I can’t wait for a bite.”

“Here.” She said instinctively. Cutting off a square, she popped a small piece into his mouth.

He swallowed it down and stood to smile at her, his hard features transformed into that of a tender, kind man. “Delicious.” He said, looking straight into her eyes. His voice was a whisper. Lost in the shades of blue that the rising sun brought out in his eyes, Victoria noticed in a faraway sort of way that there was a crumb sticking to his full lower lip.

Blinking, she kept herself from reaching out to touch it, and instead turned back to the laptop. “Looks like it’s booted up and ready to go.” She said, breaking the spell.

Randolf bought the laptop over to the table, and the two of them watched the CD from beginning to end. It seemed like a typical PR video with interviews from all the artists who were contributing. Victoria, to her surprise, was on it too and only now remembered giving the interview.

“Look at that you’re famous,” Randolf said. A little square under her head had “Victoria, Chef, and Caterer” printed on it, as Victoria was explaining her plans for the party.

Karen was interviewed next, and Steve.

But at the end of the video, neither Randolf nor Victoria could find a single thing that might make someone willing to murder LeeLee over it.