Dog Days Murderous Nights: Winnona Peaks Mysteries Book 1 (7 page)

“Well, like I said, has she been acting differently at all?”  Kathleen asked.

“Come to think of it, yes.  Just yesterday I told her that I was choosing J.W.’s shots of the beagle over hers.  She was really upset.  I’ve got this bruise here to prove it.  It’s not much.  I get bruises on my lip if I sneeze too hard.”  Kathleen looked down at his wrist and forearm where definite purple lines were forming.”

“Diana did this to you?”  Gregory frowned.

“Like I said, she was really upset.  It’s not a big deal.  You should see the one on my hip from me clipping that ATM machine over there. I just told her that she needed to relax.  I even had the magazine pay for her dinner down at Mickey’s Tavern to take the sting out of me choosing J.W.’s photos.

“Does she know that you bought that thumb drive?”

“Well, not yet.  We’ve all been really busy.  She usually uploads her thumbnails to a common account and I look at them when the dust settles. I glanced at them briefly but then I bought the thumb drive and moved on to other deadlines.”

Gregory stepped forward. “Could you hold off on telling her just yet that you are still using J.W.’s photos?”

“Why certainly.  Is there anything else I can do?” Charlie asked. 

Gregory pulled the camera from around his neck and handed it to Charlie.  “We need this shot enhanced.  We’d like to see the mirror in this shot in greater detail.” 

Charlie frowned. “Well, I can zoom in but I’m not sure it will give you much.  Do you mind if I look through the rest of these shots?”  Gregory shook his head handing over the camera and Charlie started scanning.  “That’s odd.” Without saying a word he disappeared to the back of his booth with the camera and started looking through some files on his laptop.  Plugging a cord into J.W.’s camera he fired up his printer and printed off five to ten pictures before returning to Gregory and Kathleen.  Frowning, he said, “Well now I’m confused.”  Flipping his reading glasses back to the top of his head he pulled out the jeweler’s magnifying glass and looked at two identical photos.

“Well I don’t know.  It looks like in all the confusion I have duplicates here,” Charlie said.

“Well, why is that bad?”  Gregory asked.  Charlie handed Gregory the jeweler’s magnifying glass and the photo of Nori and Mable on the sofa in J.W.’s room.  “Yea, I see the hand and the camera in the background.  So?”  Charlie handed Gregory one of the duplicates.

“There’s no camera!”

“I printed out three or four shots and they all have the same problem.”

“Well can’t you tell who took what shot?”

“I’ve been in such a rush I just dumped all of them in a huge J.W. folder.  I could do some research but it will take some time.  Some of them are from Hailey.  Some of them are from Diana and some of them are from J.W.”

“Well, we’d really appreciate it if you could offer us a copy of your J.W. folder.” Kathleen said.

“Anything.  I’ll make a copy tonight.” Charlie answered, nodding.

“Can we get the camera back and take these shots with us?”  Gregory asked.  Charlie retrieved the camera and handed it back.  “Thanks for your time.” They walked away from the booth.  “Do you have time to do some interviewing back at the bed and breakfast?”

“Looks like I have to make time, doesn’t it.”  Kathleen sighed.  The announcer’s voice was echoing through the arena telling license plate 234-HJR that they were parked in a fire lane and needed to move before they were towed.  With no fingerprint evidence at the scene none of this got them much closer.  Especially if two out of the three of the ladies were in on it together.

Chapter 14

Christy’s guests were all arriving back from the dog show for dinner.  The mood was somber.  Luckily she had the pork shoulder smoking out back on the barbecue all day long, so it would be really tender for the sandwiches. She wasn’t sure if Nori would eat it with her refined tastes but it didn’t really matter what Christy served.  It didn’t seem like Mrs. Nori Deswood would ever be satisfied.

Gregory and Kathleen were back from their interview with Diana’s boss.  Even though they found more clues they also were worried it was harder to solve.  Kathleen asked Christy to do some of the interviewing of the guests since she at least had a small relationship with Nori after they comforted her behind the arena at the dog show.  Christy thought Gregory was stretching that a bit when he described it back to her in front of Kathleen.  It was cute.  In any case they all three decided to ask the questions before the dinner hour.  Christy’s Grandma always told her to put aside your cares when it came to the dinner table.  Many a flauta has been soured in someone’s stomach because people were arguing over the day’s cares—“No matter what they are!” Grandma would snort, wagging her finger at little Christy.  Christy wasn’t so sure that somebody being murdered at Alfie’s was a care you could really put aside so easily.  In any case, she hoped they could clear it up soon so everyone could get on with their lives. 

“I don’t think Grandma would object to discussing murder over lemonade and tea,” Christy mumbled to herself as she prepared the drinks for the guests all sitting in the living room again. Worse than the night before, Diana and Nori looked distant.  Nori took short breaths on occasion like she was going to erupt into tears.  Hailey had a scowl on her face and simply tried to ignore everyone by pointedly putting her laptop up and concentrating on whatever work she was doing.  Gregory and Kathleen sat waiting for Christy.  Kathleen had already been the one to gather them out of their rooms and really didn’t want to get the ball rolling.

“Well, we’re all back again.  Lemonade anyone?” Christy chimed as she put down the tray.  “I have some homemade biscotti cooling for our evening coffee, and a few macaroons left over from last night’s dessert plate if you prefer.”  Christy had an ancient willow tree that nudged in the wind and when it was quiet enough in the living room you could hear the branches scraping the upper windows.  It was quiet enough.

“Well, I’ll get right to it.  It seems more and more likely that J.W. was murdered,” Christy said.  Diana and Nori sat up. 

“Murdered!” Nori said.  “I already told you I was the last one to see him alive.  I refuse to go through this ridiculous—”  she started to get up to leave.

“Please, Mrs. Deswood.” Kathleen pleaded.  “All we are trying to do is eliminate all three of you as suspects.  For all we know J.W. had some enemy that walked in and set the whole thing up and left.  It’s not like Ms. Roberts locks her doors all the time.” Christy frowned at Kathleen a little but proceeded.

“Yes, Nori.  Please sit down and let us ask our questions.  We need some clarification.”

Nori sat back down and Mable rearranged herself in her lap.  Alfie and Snowy came up, wagging their tails, wondering what all the commotion was about.

Letting out a yelping scream, Hailey whipped her legs underneath her.  Clutching her laptop to her chest she cried, “Can you please make those things go lie down or play dead or something!”  The rest of the dog lovers all raised their eyebrows at Hailey while Christy bent down and pet her dogs.

“Alfie.  Snowy.  Go lie down.”  Hearing the authority in Christy’s voice the dogs retreated to their beds in the kitchen.  Mable raised her head for a moment and then laid it back down on Nori’s lap.

Nori snapped at Hailey, “If you don’t like dogs so much why in the world are you the new executive director for J.W.’s foundation?”

“I didn’t know anything about it until I got a call this morning.  Apparently J.W. was going to surprise me at the dog show with the promotion.”

“But he fired you,” Christy piped up, confused.

“I didn’t let him finish what he was saying.  He was in the middle of the story but all I heard was that I wasn’t going to be working for him anymore.  I called him names and I—oh, I feel so terrible.” Hailey started to cry and Christy was quick with the tissue.

“I’m really sorry that both of you have lost your friend,” Diana said to Nori and Hailey.  “Could we hurry these questions along?  They want to pick up the pieces and I’ve got a million deadlines with the magazine I have to deal with.”

“Sounds great.  Diana did you make a deal to sell your Snoopy’s Tempting Delight photos to Canine Philosophy?”

“It wasn’t like I planned it. Charlie was in a rush and I’ve been running my butt off all over the show trying to make up for lost time with J.W. not there.”

“So at the moment we have two people with motive in the room.  Unless, of course, one of you was working with Nori to commit the murder.”

“That’s crazy!” Hailey said.  “Why would I kill J.W.?  He was going to give me a promotion!”

“But you didn’t know about that promotion until after he was dead.  We all watched you call him a monster and try to rip the screen door off the front of the house,” Gregory said.

“Don’t take the bait.  They don’t have any proof of anything and I’m not even sure this one over here is a real cop,” Diana said to Hailey.

“Well of course we will talk to them, Hailey,” Nori chimed in.  “I have already told you everything I know. I was the last to see him alive.  He agreed to take photos for me to increase my publicity.  It was a grand and kind gesture even though he knew my Mable wasn’t going to win this year.”

“That’s one reason we were asking you about the photos, Diana,” Christy said.  Gregory opened the file and laid all the photos from Charlie on the coffee table in front of them.

“Yes.  Those are the photos he took.  He took some there and some in front of the closet.  I liked these here the best,” Nori said with satisfaction.

“But why are there so many here?”  Hailey asked.

“These photos come from three different sources,” Christy said.  “Charlie said one came from the camera he used to take the shots of Nori.  One source came from a thumb drive he purchased from Hailey this morning.  He said one of them came from your camera, Diana, because it was mixed in with your shots of the beagle this morning.”

“That’s impossible,” Diana cackled.  “I went back to the arena last night to check on some lighting issues.  I was getting a strange glare and I wanted to get good shots during the evening events under those huge mercury lamps.”

“That brings us to another point,” Christy continued.  “It still looks like Hailey is pretty motivated to kill J.W. That thumb drive cost Charlie Kibbe and the Canine Philosophy a pretty penny, didn’t it, Hailey.

“It’s not what it looks like.  Yes.  I sold him the photos.  That’s just what J.W. was supposed to be doing the entire time!  For the first time the photographs were going to make some money!  It doesn’t mean I killed him!”

“Now let me get this clear.  You sold him a thumb drive with photographs on it?  What made it so valuable, now?” Christy asked.

Hailey avoided looking at Diana.  “It has the native files J.W. took of the beagle. It contained the ones that Charlie had already chosen for the upcoming magazine.”  Diana’s head whipped around.

“Does that make you upset, Diana?” Christy asked.

“No, not at all.  Why should it make me upset?”

“Your boss, Charlie, already told us how desperate you were to sell him your photos. It sounded like you might have been pretty upset when you first found out he wasn’t going to use your photos.  Charlie even has the bruises on his wrist to prove it.”

“Charlie just bruises easily,” she shot back. “Besides, I made my peace over a free meal Charlie bought me at the tavern.”

“Okay then we just have to keep trying to figure out some things from these photos.”

“Well I am just about done with this little game without my lawyer present so you’ll have to come up with some quick before I lose my patience,” Diana said.

“Diana, do you have one of those jeweler’s magnifying glasses?”

“Yes, and their called loupes.  I have one in my bag right over there.”

“Can you get that for us, please?” Christy asked.  Diana complied and sat back down, holding the loupe out of use.  Christy held up and handed the photos to Diana to use.  Gregory was tired of being polite and finally took a big glass of lemonade.  “Now look at all three of the photos we have here.  See anything different?”  Christy asked.  Diana quickly scanned the photos and handed them back. 

“This is silly.  I don’t need a loupe to see that you have three duplicates.”  She handed the loupe to Christy, sat back and crossed her arms.  Christy smiled and took the loupe to the photo, finding the hand and camera in the mirror. She held it firmly in place and gave it to Hailey. 

“So, Hailey, what do you see here?”

“There’s a hand and camera in J.W.’s closet.  You can see it in the mirror behind Nori.  Someone was in the closet!” 

Diana yanked it out of her hand and looked.  “So what.  It could just be a PhotoWorks trick.”

Christy patiently picked up one of the other duplicates.  “Well one of them is definitely the work of PhotoWorks.”  She smiled and handed her the other photograph. 

“This is a setup.  It doesn’t mean anything,” Diana said.

“Let me see,” Hailey said, holding out her hand for the photo and the loupe. “There’s nothing in the closet in this one!  How is this possible?”  She handed both of them over to Nori who was also curious.

“Oh, don’t play coy, Hailey.  It’s no secret that you are pretty handy with a camera.  I’m sure you could have pulled the trick off in a heartbeat.  From what I’ve noticed, you’ve been playing with some thumbnails there yourself on your laptop while we’re chatting.  Want to share with the group?”  Hailey shot her a glare.

“You’re just jealous that he chose J.W.’s shots.  If you must know I had to edit some of the shots for the upcoming tribute issue of Canine Philosophy.”

“Tribute issue?” Diana said.

“You’re so consumed with that picture you deleted of the beagle you didn’t even get the memo that the entire spread is dedicated to J.W.,” Hailey barked.

“I didn’t delete the photo.” Diana let a wicked grin cross her face.  “You know what, Hailey?  Right now, the fake cop has only you and me in their suspect pool and if they had anything else, you’d be under arrest right now.  So there’s a tribute issue to J.W.  Who cares?  Every day is a new day.  A new shot as they say in the business.”