Raspberry Revenge (5 page)

“When he rejected me,” she admitted.

“And not after?” Momma asked.

“No, that was it. The last time I saw him, he was laughing at me.”

“Megan, if you don’t mind us asking, where were you this morning? Have you been at work all day?” I asked.

“Yes, I’ve been here at my desk since I punched in. Why do you ask?”

I ignored her question. “You start at nine, don’t you?”

“Yes, and I work until five, with thirty minutes for lunch. I always spend it here, reading.” Even though mysteries weren’t her forte, she finally got it. “Suzanne, you’re asking me for an alibi, aren’t you?”

I could have denied it, but why bother? “I don’t have much choice. Some folks overheard your exchange with Harley,” I said. “Naturally you’d be a suspect.”

“Are you both working for the police now?” she asked, raising her voice as she looked from Momma to me.

“No, but we’re often in close consultation with them,” I replied, which was true enough. I consulted with my husband on a daily basis, from what we’d have for dinner to the movie we might watch afterward. That might not have been what she meant, but I couldn’t help that, could I?

“Like I said, I’ve been here all day,” she said.

“With no breaks?” I asked her.

“I have one at ten thirty every morning, but it’s only ten minutes, so I didn’t have time to go from here to City Hall, kill Harley, and make it back on time.” She looked down at her desk to compose herself, and then she added, “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a client coming in three minutes, and I need to print out some paperwork before she arrives.”

I touched Momma’s arm, and we stood. “Thanks for your time.”

Megan didn’t even respond.

Once we were outside of the hospital, Momma said, “It appears that Megan has a solid alibi for the time of the murder.”

“Do you think so? I was actually thinking that her story means that she’s still a viable suspect,” I replied.

“How so? She said she was here the entire time.”

“Momma, we can’t just take her word for it. How can we know how long her break really was? No one is around her office to see when she comes and goes, so we don’t know. For all we know, she could have been gone for half an hour, which would have been plenty of time to find Harley, kill him, and then get back here before anyone even realized that she was even gone.”

Momma frowned. “If that’s the case, then how can we possibly find the truth?”

“I’ll call Jake and tell him what we just learned. He can pull the hospital’s security video and see if Megan’s story holds water.”

“Does he often do what you ask him to, I mean in his official capacity?”

“Not necessarily, but when it comes to his investigations, he’s not too proud to take help from anyone who can help him catch a killer.”

“This is all rather more difficult than it seems, isn’t it?” she asked me.

“It takes a certain mindset, that’s all.”

“You don’t give yourself enough credit, Suzanne.”

“Maybe not. I just do the best I can, stumbling along until I find the one clue that leads me to the truth.”

“It’s a great deal more complicated than that, and we both know it.” Momma glanced at her watch. “We’ve got some time to kill before we speak with Curtis Daniels. What should we do in the meantime?”

“Let’s go over there anyway and see if we can catch him by surprise.”

“Is that wise?” she asked me.

“Who knows? All I know is that the quicker we figure out what really happened to Harley, the better I’ll sleep at night.”

“Then by all means, let’s go.”

Chapter 10

“D
ot, what are you doing
here?” Curtis Daniels asked as Momma and I walked into his outer office. He was at his secretary’s desk taking her to task over something she’d done, and the man was clearly upset about whatever it was. “I’ll be with you in a second,” he said. “Wendy, this is simply unacceptable. Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir,” his secretary said as she rubbed her hands raw from the stress of being upbraided. She was clearly not happy about the scolding, especially in front of us.

For some reason that satisfied Curtis, and as he turned to us, he said, “I told you earlier, I don’t have anything to say to you.”

“I think you’ll want to hear this, Curtis,” Momma said brusquely.

“I don’t know if you’ve heard or not, but I just lost my partner. I don’t have time for your games today. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have work to do.”

“Very well,” Momma said. “If that’s your attitude, I’m donating the land you’ve been after to the Natural Conservancy Brotherhood this afternoon. I could use the tax write-off more than what you’ve been willing to pay me for it, and as you said, you have enough to deal with right now without me meddling in your business.”

“Hang on. Don’t be so hasty. I’m sure that I can carve out a few minutes for you.”

“Mr. Daniels, you asked me to remind you that you have a meeting with the Charlotte attorneys in ten minutes,” the secretary reminded him.

“This won’t take long,” he said. “Hello, Suzanne. If you’d like to wait out here, I’m sure that Wendy would be happy to get you something to drink.”

“Actually, I thought I’d tag along with Momma,” I said as I smiled.

He looked uncertainly at my mother, who nodded her approval. Seeing that he wasn’t going to win that battle, Curtis immediately became the gracious host. “Of course. Let’s go into my office.”

Once we were inside and the door was closed, Curtis sat behind his massive desk and faced us. “Now, what’s this nonsense about donating that land? It’s much too valuable to give it to the tree huggers, Dot, and you know it.”

“I happen to like their cause,” Momma said.

“Then why are you here?” he asked her pointedly. Evidently the gloves were now off.

“I may still be interested in selling the land to you, but it’s conditional.”

“Upon what?” he asked her, never giving me a second look. I didn’t blame him. Momma was clearly in charge of this meeting, no matter what the topic might be.

“You have to answer a few questions for us before I’ll even consider your offer,” she said.

Curtis pushed away from his desk and leaned back in his chair. “It can’t be that easy. I don’t get it. What’s the catch?”

“Only that you answer truthfully, fully, and to the best of your ability,” Momma said.

“It sounds as though you’re asking me to testify,” Curtis said with a partial smile.

“Take it as you will. I need your word, Curtis.”

“Fine. If it’s that important to you, I’ll answer you if I can.”

“Where were you in your progress to dissolve the company when Harley was murdered?”

Curtis didn’t answer immediately, and I wondered if we were going to get a true answer, no matter what he’d just promised my mother. “We were in the final stages,” he admitted. “We were just waiting for the final audit so I’d know what it was costing me to buy him out. I suppose it’s no big secret that we weren’t happy with each other anymore. That blasted woman started getting into his head, and she was slowly ruining him, if you ask me.”

“Are you referring to Amber North?” I asked him. So much for me being the silent witness to the proceedings.

“Yes, of course. Who else? She thought I was taking advantage of Harley, when in truth, I was bending over backwards to make our partnership work.”

I doubted the veracity of what he was saying, but he was convincing nonetheless. I knew my mother could hold her own doing business with him, but I also realized that he would have eaten me alive if I’d come there alone.

“What happens now?” she asked softly.

“Who knows? That’s why the attorneys are coming in. They’re going to help me straighten this mess out.”

“Did you have a surviving partnership clause in your contract, by any chance?” Momma asked him.

“It’s a great deal more complicated than that, Dot.”

“Answer the question, Curtis,” Momma said icily.

“Yes and no,” he finally admitted.

“Meaning?”

“Meaning it’s not that easy to explain. There were riders and conditions that I can’t remember, thus the attorney visit.”

“But ultimately, you gain control of the company, and probably Harley’s share of the business as well.”

“Don’t you think I know that I have to be a suspect in his murder?” Curtis asked as he stood and began pacing behind his desk. “Your husband has already been to see me,” he added as he pointed to me.

“You can’t blame him. He’s just doing his job,” I said. “Did you happen to provide him with an alibi when you spoke?”

“Ask him yourself,” Curtis snapped at me.

Momma frowned. “I thought you were going to cooperate.”

He shrugged, and after a moment, he said, “I happened to be in Union Square all morning looking at some of our holdings.”

“Why were you doing that?” Momma asked him.

“We were going to have to liquidate several properties we owned jointly in order to pay Harley for his half of the business.”

“Something you are no longer required to do,” Momma said.

“Don’t read too much into it, Dot.”

“Can anyone verify you were there?” I asked him.

“No one was with me the entire time, if that’s what you’re asking me. Right now I feel as though I can’t turn around without someone taking note of it, but I have a question for you two. You’re both friends with the mayor, who happened to work in the office where Harley’s body was found. Why isn’t anyone asking him these questions?”

I wasn’t about to tell him that George was missing.

That didn’t stop Momma, though. “As soon as he is found, I’m certain that he’ll have a reasonable explanation.”

I wanted to cover my head in my hands. Momma had just revealed something that might end up being extremely incriminating about George, and what was worse, she’d told it to one of our main suspects.

“He’s missing? And you’re here grilling me? Why would he run, Dot, if he didn’t have anything to do with Harley’s murder, which just happened to take place in his chair at his desk in his office with his letter opener?”

“He’ll be duly questioned soon enough,” Momma said, “but right now, we’re here speaking with you.”

Curtis frowned a moment before he spoke again. “You know what? I don’t want that land after all. By the time I’m free to buy it when the legalities of this mess are all straightened out, you’ll have disposed of it anyway, so go ahead and donate it to the tree-huggers for all I care. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a meeting with the attorneys to prepare for.”

The dismissal was clear.

Momma and I did the only thing that we could do; we stood up and left.

My mother waited out on the sidewalk before she said, “Suzanne, I can’t believe that I just did that. I didn’t think. I just blurted out the fact that George was missing, and it shifted the focus of the entire conversation away from where we wanted it to be. I’m so sorry.”

“It happens,” I said, trying to stay calm about her lapse in judgment.

“Not to me, it doesn’t. Can you ever forgive me?”

“Don’t worry about it, Momma. Curtis was bound to find out sooner or later.”

“Perhaps, but I had no right to be the one who told him.”

“Let’s not worry about that right now, Momma,” I said as we made our way to my Jeep. Ordinarily she refused to ride in it on principle, but since this was my investigation, I hadn’t given her a choice. “Do you mind if I take you home now?” Before she could voice her regrets again, I added, “It’s got nothing to do with what happened in there. I just need to catch up with Grace and tell her what we discovered.”

“And recount my error to her as well, no doubt.”

“It’s part of it, Momma, but don’t be too hard on yourself. Grace and I have slipped up plenty in the past ourselves.”

“Honestly?” Momma asked me hopefully.

“You have no idea. I’d tell you, but I couldn’t stand the embarrassment.”

“That makes me feel somewhat better,” she said.

“Why wouldn’t it?” I asked her with a grin. “In the end, we’re all just amateurs doing our best to track down killers. As a whole, I think we do a pretty good job of it.”

“So then, does that mean that you’re not firing me?” she asked me timidly as I dropped her off at her front door.

“No, you get two more strikes before that happens,” I answered. I hadn’t wanted the news of George’s absence to get out, but I knew that sooner or later, the entire town of April Springs would find out that he was gone. It was really just a matter of bad timing more than anything else, and I wasn’t about to chastise my mother about it. Why would I? She was doing a pretty good job of that herself.

Once she was inside, I headed the Jeep toward Grace’s house.

It was time to tell her what we’d learned, no matter how little it felt like at the moment.

Chapter 11

“C
ome on inside, Suzanne. It’s
freezing out here,” Grace said as she greeted me at her front door. I didn’t think it was all that cold, but then again, Grace had a tendency to be warm blooded at times. “Did you have any luck with your interviews?”

“A little,” I said, and then I brought her up to speed on what Momma and I had learned.

“So,” she said after I finished, “we now have alibis for all of our suspects, as sketchy as they are. One of them has to be lying to us.”

“At least one, but that’s not the only possibility,” I said.

“I’m listening.”

“We may not have even found the real killer yet.”

“Do you think there’s another suspect somewhere out there?” Grace asked me as she took my jacket and hung it up by the door.

“If there is, we’ll have to keep our eyes and ears open. I’ve been trying to call George on his cellphone all day, but it goes straight to voicemail. Where could he have gone?”

“I don’t see any possible way that he killed Harley, no matter how much of a pain the man was to him.”

“I don’t either, Grace,” I said hastily. “But that doesn’t mean that I wouldn’t like to hear what he has to say about what happened in his office today. With Gabby gone too, it’s kind of a troubling trend.”

“That’s one mystery solved, at least. She’s back in town,” Grace said with a smile.

“What? How do you know that?”

“I got bored waiting around here for you, so I decided to take a walk through the park to clear my head. I figured maybe I’d get some insights into our investigation, and the worst-case scenario was that I got a little exercise. While I was out, I decided to stroll over to Gabby’s, and I got there just as she was taking the sign off her door.”

“Where had she been?” I asked. I’d driven right past ReNEWed on my way to Grace’s, but I must have been so preoccupied with the investigation that I hadn’t even noticed the sign announcing Gabby’s absence was gone. Some detective I was turning out to be.

“She said that she decided on the spur of the moment to close the shop and take a drive,” Grace said. “At least that’s what she told me. Suzanne, she was shocked when I told her that Harley had been murdered in George’s office this morning. There’s no way she could have faked that reaction.”

“We never really considered her a suspect, so it’s not all that surprising,” I said.

“With Gabby, I figured that we couldn’t rule her out, even if she didn’t have a connection with Harley. Her first response to the news was a little troubling, though.”

“How did she react?”

“Before I even told her that George was missing, she asked how he was taking the news.”

I thought about it a moment before I spoke. “That’s not that odd. After all, the man’s office is a crime scene. That’s enough to upset anyone.”

“Sure it is, but then she added, ‘This isn’t going to look good for him,’ and that’s before I even said anything about him taking off.”

“Why does everyone keep sharing that news?” I asked, a little peeved that Grace had repeated something we were trying to keep under wraps, just as Momma had done earlier.

“Hey, don’t bite my head off,” Grace said as she held her palms up in a motion to calm me down. “I figured that for most folks in town, it was already common knowledge.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “Momma told Curtis, and now you’ve said something to Gabby. I’m afraid that George is going to be tried and convicted by the public before he even gets a chance to explain himself.”

“I get that, but you have to admit that it’s an awfully big coincidence to swallow,” Grace said. “There’s no denying it, any way you look at it. Taking off around the time his main rival was murdered in the man’s own office has all kinds of red flags waving.”

“I don’t like the way it looks any more than you do, but just this once, we’re going to work with the assumption that the two facts are totally unrelated.”

“If you say so, boss. After all, I’m just the hired hand around here,” Grace said with a smile.

“You’re more than that, and we both know it. What should we do next? I’m afraid we’ve exhausted the questions we can ask our suspects, and short of taking a poll door to door, I don’t know how to stir up any more suspects at the moment.”

“I wish we could get inside Harley’s office and have a look around,” Grace said. “How hard would it be to do it without Curtis noticing?”

“Between him and his secretary, I’d say that it was pretty much impossible.”

“How about his house, then?” Grace suggested.

“Probably just as tough, but we can’t go there until Jake is finished with it. Even then, he’s probably not going to appreciate us nosing around behind him.”

“Is there the slightest chance that our investigation bothers him more than he’s letting on?” she asked me.

“Probably, but as long as we don’t try to beat him to the killer, we should be fine,” I said.

“That doesn’t leave us with much that we can do, does it?”

“We’ll just have to find a way to make do within our limitations. I’m not about to cross Jake without having a very good reason.”

“I don’t blame you a bit,” Grace said. “Listen, if there’s nothing else we can do at the moment, I’ve got a few things still on my desk that need to be handled. Do you mind?”

I glanced at my watch and saw that it was nearly time for Jake to come home. I knew if he got there first, he’d thaw a batch of the chili he loved to make, and I didn’t think my stomach could take another meal of it so soon. My only hope was to beat him home and cook something for us myself. “No, that works out fine with me. What does your day look like tomorrow?”

“If I can get through this paperwork, I’ll be able to take off right about when you’re closing the donut shop for the day.”

“Let’s meet up then and see if either one of us has been able to come up with something else to do that won’t burn too many bridges,” I suggested.

“Good luck with that. I’ll see you tomorrow,” she said as I left her place.

Jake wasn’t home yet, and I didn’t really feel like cooking something from scratch. I pulled a frozen lasagna that I’d made a few weeks earlier from the freezer, being careful to avoid any skin contact with his blistering-hot chili, and started thawing it in the microwave. Momma probably wouldn’t have approved of anything short of a fresh home-cooked meal, but I wasn’t planning on telling her, so we were good on that front. The microwave oven timer beeped at me, so I knew that our meal was nearly ready. One more cycle at full power, and we’d be ready to eat.

That was, if my husband made it home for dinner, which was anything but a given at this point in his investigation.

When Jake was working on a case, he tended to get consumed by it, and I didn’t see why Harley’s murder would be any different. Just in case, I grabbed my phone and called him.

He picked up on the second ring, which was a good sign.

“Hey, Jake. Any chance you’ll be able to make it home for dinner?”

“I’m two minutes away,” he said, and I could hear the smile in his voice. “If you don’t feel like cooking, I’d be happy to thaw out some chili for us.”

“As much as I appreciate the offer, the lasagna is almost ready.” I’d dodged a bullet with my preemptive dinner strike, but I had to be careful not to let it show in my voice.

“That sounds great, too,” he said, his cheeriness fading a little. I knew that he enjoyed my cooking, but I was going to have to let him serve us chili again soon. If marriage was nothing else, it was compromise.

To make up for taking away his dining options, I got out some of the cheddar chive rolls that I’d made the same day I’d done the lasagna and thawed them after the lasagna was resting. The rolls were best fresh from the oven with gobs of melted butter on them, but they were pretty good thawed out as well, especially if the fresh version wasn’t available. That would put a smile back on his face.

Jake walked into the cottage and paused at the door to take a deep breath. Before he could say anything, I asked, “Any word about George?”

“Would it be okay with you if I just stood here a second and took in that aroma?” he asked gently.

“Sorry,” I said, and I took in a breath myself. The defrosted lasagna and bread filled the kitchen with such a delightful aroma that it was a shame no one had ever tried to bottle it. “Are you hungry?”

“I’m starving,” he said. “I skipped lunch.”

“You shouldn’t do that,” I said as I handed him an empty plate. He filled it with more food than I would have, and I tried to show some restraint as I put an oversized portion on mine.

I failed miserably. There was no way that I was going to be able to eat all that food, even if I skipped having a roll, which I wasn’t about to do. Maybe I’d wrap up what was left and have it the next day. Putting part of my portion back into the pan never crossed my mind.

As we sat at the table and ate, I made it a point not to quiz Jake about his day. After all, he deserved a break from the case, and for that matter, so did I. I’d spent so much of my focus on Harley Boggess, and that was after a full day of working at the donut shop, that I’d had little time to do anything else. It was pleasant chatting with my husband without having any ulterior motive.

After we were finished, he grabbed both of our plates and carried them to the sink. That was the rule in our house: if you cooked, your spouse did the dishes, and yes, that included premade meals that were simply heated up. I grabbed the glasses and silverware and put them in with the plates. “Do you want a hand with those?” I asked him as I started putting the leftover lasagna into a container. Surprisingly, or not, there hadn’t been enough left on my plate to bother with, despite my earlier belief.

“That would be great,” he said.

We worked together, enjoying the time and each other’s company, and soon enough, the task was complete and our kitchen was spotless again.

“Suzanne, I don’t know how you do it,” he asked as he hung the dish towel up to dry.

“It’s not that bad. I took some of Momma’s recipes and added a few tricks I learned from Angelica, and I made something new and unique of my own.”

“As great as the meal was, I wasn’t talking about the food.”

“What, then?”

“You didn’t say another word about George Morris, or the case at all, as soon as I asked you not to.”

“Jake, you should know by now that I’m obedient, if I’m anything,” I said with as straight a face as I could manage.

We both laughed at that so loudly that it was a wonder Grace didn’t come knocking on our door to see what was so hilarious. My husband and I were good for each other, and there wasn’t a day that I wasn’t happy we’d come together, a much different state of mind than I’d had during my first marriage to Max.

“Well, you did a fine job keeping it in, and as a reward, I’m going to share a few things about the case that I’ve learned. Unless you want to go first.”

“No, by all means. The floor is yours,” I said as we walked into the living room and sat on the couch. I’d stoked the fire upon arriving, and we had a nice cheery blaze going now.

“I’m afraid it’s going to be a short dissertation,” he said glumly. “First off, there hasn’t been any sign of George anywhere. I’ve notified my old office at State Police Headquarters that our mayor is missing but that it’s nothing to be alarmed about yet.”

“Was that a good idea?” I asked him. The last thing I wanted was his old boss getting his hands on April Springs again.

“Maybe not, but my force isn’t big enough to conduct a statewide hunt,” he said. “For all of the good it’s done me. I looked over Harley’s home and his office pretty thoroughly. There were a few things that might turn out to be clues, but nothing struck me initially.”

“How about George’s office?”

“It’s clean,” he said. “I’ve been talking to the mayor about putting security cameras in City Hall, but he hasn’t shown the slightest bit of interest so far.”

“I don’t blame him,” I said. “I hate the thought of someone watching me every time I go in and out of the building.”

“Do you think I like it any better?” Jake asked. “I’m afraid that’s the way the world is headed. Anyway, it’s a moot point, at least as far as Harley’s murder is concerned.”

“Has the coroner examined the body yet?” I asked, since it was not information I would ordinarily be privy to.

“Not yet, but why do you ask? I’ve been working on the assumption that the letter opener wound was fatal. Is there something you know that I don’t?”

“Not about that,” I said. “I was just curious.”

He frowned at me for a moment, and then he said, “Okay, now it’s your turn.”

“Grace, Momma, and I are working on this case together,” I said, letting the words spill out. I wasn’t sure that he’d approve, so I wanted to get that out front immediately.

“Excellent. It’s about time you three joined forces,” he said with the hint of a smile.

“Excuse me? Does that mean that you approve?” I couldn’t believe his casual acceptance of the new circumstances.

“There are a couple of reasons I think it’s a good idea,” he said. “Your mother has contacts in this town that you and I can only dream about, and besides, maybe she’ll be a calming influence on the two of you.”