Fugitive Filling (9 page)

The house was cute, though too small for my taste, and I lived in a fairly modest cottage. If the entire home was four hundred square feet total, I’d be surprised. I knew about the Tiny House movement, but frankly, I had too much stuff to ever be able to do it myself, and that didn’t count everything that Jake had. We weren’t hoarders by any means, but I couldn’t see myself living with so little. I found a great deal of comfort being surrounded by my things, and I admired the people who focused more on living their lives than acquiring more stuff and needing an ever-growing amount of space to store it all in. There had to be a happy medium, at least as far as I was concerned, and I felt as though our cottage maintained a nice balance between necessity and excess. That didn’t mean that Jake and I didn’t enjoy the television shows that featured the lifestyle, though. Then again, we watched
House Hunters International
and reruns of Julia Child’s cooking show, and neither one of us had the desire to live abroad or make gourmet meals. It was entertainment, plain and simple. I loved cozy mysteries that featured recipes to try out myself, but I never seemed to make anything the authors suggested. Honestly, sometimes I enjoyed the descriptions given before the ingredients and directions lists as much as I did the actual mystery.

Teresa had decorated her small space tastefully, with three pieces of art hung on the limited wall space and enough modest furniture to be comfortable in. The bedroom was tiny, but it used every square inch of space to its full advantage, and the kitchen was compact as well. It featured a small oven/cooktop combination that looked more suited for an RV, a tiny sink, and a dishwasher under the counter that couldn’t hold enough things from more than one meal at a time. Only the main living space could be considered large, with no internal walls to crowd the space between the kitchen, the dining room, and the living room. Teresa was neat, and everything appeared to have its own place, but that might have been due more to the size of the house than her natural habits.

Jake looked around beside me and whistled softly before he said, “Well, on the plus side, it shouldn’t take long to search.”

“Could you live like this?” I asked him.

“With you?”

“I wasn’t asking you to move out,” I said with a smile. “Of course with me.”

“Then no.”

“How about when you were a bachelor?”

“Again, no,” he said. “I need more elbow room.”

“I know. They always look bigger on television.”

“I don’t think so,” he said. “So, one of us should take the kitchen, the other one the bedroom, and we work our way to the middle. What do you think?”

“It sounds like a plan to me,” I said. “I’ll take the bedroom, if you don’t mind.”

“Be my guest,” he said. “See you in a few minutes.”

Chapter 9

S
earching the bedroom turned out
to be a bust, and it didn’t take me long to discover the fact. Teresa Logan was neater than I ever would have imagined. Everything had its place, and I wondered if her housekeeping skills were because of the limited amount of space or more because of the meticulous nature of her job. Her shoes were high heeled and polished, her handbags were delicate and tasteful small clutches, and her clothes sported labels that shouted high end. I was beginning to realize that I didn’t know much about the woman at all, and I hadn’t made much of an effort to find out, either. The fact that she had enjoyed flirting with my husband had tarnished everything else about her to me. It was something hard for me to forgive, especially when she had refused to stop doing it. I began to wonder what might make her act that way. Had she been rejected at an early point in her life, and it had scarred her forever? Perhaps her father had ignored her, and so she kept trying to get the attention of every man she ever met. Could we have been friends under different circumstances? I found myself wondering about her past, but it was too late to learn anything about that now. I’d let one part of Teresa’s behavior influence my entire opinion about her. So why was I working so hard to solve her murder now? I knew the answer to that. She’d been working in a space that I owned, and she should have been safe there, but someone had violated that and had killed her in my building. That was what made it so personal. I knew that didn’t make much sense logically, but I operated on my emotions as much as I did my intellect. I may not have considered her a friend, but that didn’t mean that I was going to turn a blind eye to her murder.

I walked out into the living room and found Jake opening up boxes in the small pantry. “Have you had any luck out here? I pretty much drew a blank in the bedroom,” I told him.

“Not yet, but I’m not finished here,” Jake said, and then he frowned as he picked up a box of cereal. It was one of the healthy varieties, packed full of fiber and vitamins and all sorts of things that were supposedly good for you. I wouldn’t have eaten a bowl of it if it had been the last bit of food in the house.

“What’s wrong?”

“There’s no way this box should be this heavy,” he said.

“Maybe it’s all the iron that’s packed into it,” I said, joking.

Jake opened the box and spilled the contents out onto the small counter.

Something came out of the box, but it wasn’t cereal.

It was a personal-sized can of mace, a stun gun, and a receipt.

“Why did she hide that in a cereal box?” I asked as I joined Jake at the counter.

He shook his head as he picked up the receipt and studied it for a moment. “Suzanne, she just bought these things three days ago.”

“So, she clearly felt threatened by someone recently. I wish we knew when that letter from A arrived. The timing could be rather telling.”

“Is there really any reason not to accept the fact that we’re fairly certain who A really is? We both know that Alexander Rose sent it,” Jake said.

“I didn’t want to jump to conclusions.”

My husband shrugged. “Sometimes that’s exactly what you have to do. If you don’t make certain assumptions, you never get anywhere. My question is, why wasn’t she carrying these in her purse when she was attacked?”

“Hang on a second. I think I can answer that question,” I said as I walked back into the bedroom. I went straight to her purse collection, and when I looked up, I saw that Jake had followed me into the bedroom.

“What’s going on?” he asked as he peered over my shoulder.

“I think I know why Teresa didn’t carry the mace or the stun gun. She didn’t have a purse large enough to hold them.”

“Are you kidding me?” Jake asked.

“See for yourself. Every woman I know has at least one large handbag she carries on occasion, but apparently Teresa was the exception to the rule.”

“And it ended up costing her her life,” Jake said, shaking his head as he spoke.

“To be fair, she got hit from behind with that bookend. There was no way Teresa could have prevented that, not with what you found, or even if she’d gone out and bought a gun. She literally didn’t see it coming.”

“That’s a fair point,” Jake said. “Still, her purchases must mean something. I’m not willing to accept that it was a coincidence that she felt the need for protection, and three days later she was murdered. We need to take this straight to the chief.”

“I’m not finished looking around out here,” I protested.

“I didn’t mean this instant. We might as well be thorough. I’m finished in the kitchen, so it’s time we started on the main living space. You take that end, and I’ll start over there.”

The first thing I did was to glance through the magazines that were neatly arranged on the small coffee table by the most comfortable chair in the place. To my surprise, a small piece of stationery fell out from between two magazines.

I opened it up and read the contents. “Thanks again for dinner. Next time it’s on me.”

It was signed with a signature familiar to me, Trish Granger, the owner of the Boxcar Grill.

“Did you even know they were friends?” Jake asked me as he leaned over my shoulder. He must have seen me frowning as I read the note and joined me to see what I’d discovered. I hadn’t even realized he was behind me.

“I didn’t have any idea,” I said. “Is there any way this is a clue?”

“To her murder?” Jake asked me, clearly surprised by my question. “Suzanne, you’re not accusing Trish of killing Teresa Logan, are you?”

“Of course not,” I said. “I’m just wondering if we should show this to St…the chief.”

“My guess is that it’s probably not relevant,” Jake said. “But then again, what could it hurt? It’s not as though we’re accusing Trish of anything other than sneaking around your back sharing a meal with someone else.”

I knew that he’d meant it playfully, but unfortunately, I couldn’t bring myself to react that way. “Jake, Trish is welcome to have any friend that she’d like. I do things with Grace all the time without including her, so why should she tell me every last person she shares a meal with when I’m not around?”

“Hey, I was just kidding. Take it easy,” he said as he stroked my shoulder lightly. “She probably didn’t tell you because she didn’t want to upset you. After all, it was no secret to anyone in April Springs about the way you felt about Teresa.”

“If Trish knew that I felt that way, then why did she go behind my back and hang out with Teresa?” I asked. Even as I said it, I felt as though I’d reverted to high school again, not a pleasant thing. “I cannot believe how small I just sounded. Forget I said it.”

“Why? Suzanne, you’re allowed to be petty every now and then, just like the rest of us,” Jake said as he hugged me.

The embrace coupled with my husband’s acceptance were two parts of the perfect answer to my fit of pique. After a few moments, I broke away from him. “Thank you. I’m all better now. Some things just manage to bring out the worst in me.”

“If that’s as bad as you ever get, I can find a way to deal with it,” he said with a smile.

“That’s easy for you to say. I’ve never seen you react that way to anyone.”

“My dear sweet wife, you’d better believe that I have a dark side just as bleak as everyone else.”

“If that’s really true, then why don’t I ever see it?” I asked my husband. It was the complete and unvarnished truth. Jake was rarely angry, and when he was, it was always with good cause. I’d never known the man to be petty about anything.

Jake grinned at me before he answered my question. “It’s probably because I keep that part of me chained up in the basement. Every now and then I throw down some food for it, but mostly it stays safely locked up.”

“I don’t believe you,” I said as I kissed him lightly.

“That’s your prerogative, but that doesn’t make it untrue. Now, let’s finish this up and get out of here, shall we?”

“Okay by me.”

It didn’t take long to finish our search, and nothing out of the ordinary came up over the next ten minutes. We might have missed something, even in that tiny space, but I couldn’t imagine what it might be. It would have helped if either one of us had known the woman very well, but as it was, we were there looking for something obvious that anyone would recognize as a legitimate clue. Any nuances about the state of the house would have to be discovered by someone who knew the victim quite a bit better than either one of us had.

“I’m ready to go now if you are,” I said. “Before we leave, I wouldn’t mind looking around the outside after we lock up. You never know what we might find.”

My husband smiled. “I was about to suggest that we do that myself. You’re getting pretty good at investigating, Suzanne.”

“Really? I’m constantly trying to get better, but sometimes it feels as though the more I know, the more I realize just how much I still need to learn,” I admitted.

“In my opinion, that’s what makes you good at anything you do.” Jake put the things we’d found back into the empty cereal box, added the note from Trish, and then tucked it all under one arm as we exited Teresa’s tiny house.

I was just locking the door behind us when I heard someone calling out to us. As I turned, I tucked the key into my front pocket, more as a matter of habit than any planned design.

Alexander Rose trotted toward us. “I’m really glad I caught you,” he said, nearly out of breath. Apparently the attorney didn’t believe in cardio exercise, not that I did much of that myself.

“What can we do for you?” Jake asked him.

“I just need to get something of mine inside that’s important to me. I already spoke with Nick, and he told me that you had the key. I’d appreciate it if you’d let me have it so I can retrieve it and then I’ll be on my way.”

I made no move to do as he asked. “I’m really sorry, but we can’t do that.”

The attorney frowned. “I just told you I had the landlord’s permission.”

“If he wants to let you have the key, you’ll need to get it directly from him,” Jake said. “However, I’m going to advise him against doing it.”

“Why would you do that?”

“You have no right to go in there,” Jake said.

“Oh, and you do?” The attorney was clearly getting frustrated by our refusal to do exactly what he wished.

“That’s none of your business,” Jake said, trying to shut him down.

“We’ll just see about that,” the attorney said as he turned his back and stormed off. “You’re crossing the wrong man.”

“It won’t be the first time,” I said with a smile as he left in a huff.

“You know, he does have a point,” Jake said after Rose was gone. “As civilians, we really didn’t have any call to be in there any more than he did.”

“Maybe not, but do you think Teresa would want him pawing through her things? Miranda told us that she tossed the letter he sent her, but Alexander has no way of knowing that. Is that what he wanted to take, or was he here looking for something else, something that might be even more negative to his reputation than that?”

“If there’s anything else hidden in that tiny little space, we certainly couldn’t find it,” Jake said.

“So, either the police chief has already found what Alexander is after, or Teresa hid it someplace else.”

“In her office, perhaps?” Jake asked.

“We’ve already searched there, and so has Chief Grant,” I reminded him.

“True, but as you recall, our search was cut short by the police showing up. Maybe whatever Alexander Rose is looking for is better hidden than any of us realize.”

“Should we go back there and look again?” I asked.

“Probably, but not until we see the chief.”

“I know, I think it’s a good idea, too, but first we’re looking around outside, remember?” I asked.

“I’m not about to forget that.”

Together, Jake and I walked around the tiny house, and I was about to give it up as a lost cause when I glanced down into the empty trashcan. There was nothing in it, and I wondered if one of the chief’s staff had removed its contents. The tip of something caught my eye on the ground beneath it, and as I lifted up the can, I made a discovery underneath it.

To my surprise, there was a single red rose pressed hard into the ground, or what remained of one. Most of the petals had been ripped off, leaving only a few stragglers in place. The stem was thorny, and as I bent to pick it up, Jake said, “Let me do that.” He grabbed his handkerchief and retrieved it for me.

“What do you suppose that means?” he asked me as he studied it.

“Well, a single red rose usually means I love you,” I said. “Evidently, Teresa wasn’t too pleased to get the message from whoever sent it, based on the condition of this. It’s barely more than a stem.”

“Why was it under the can, though?” Jake asked.

“Maybe tossing it inside just wasn’t good enough.”

“Or maybe she threw it and missed, and when the police team emptied the trashcan, they inadvertently covered up what might be evidence.”

“That’s probably more likely,” I said. “Do you think that was what Alexander Rose was just looking for? Hey, that makes sense. A man named Rose would absolutely give the woman he’s stalking a single red rose.”