Shelley Freydont - Celebration Bay 03 - Independence Slay (8 page)

“Maybe Henry Gallantine gave the signal, stabbed Rundle, and got the heck out.”

“If it had been Henry, Leo would have recognized him.”

“Where is he, then?”

“Hiding out in that big mansion of his.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. That’s the first thing the police did, search the house.”

“What do you think, Liv? You were up there.” Roscoe Jackson’s question turned all eyes toward Liv.

“I don’t know any more than what you’ve heard. We were sent downstairs to wait, so I don’t even know what the police did or didn’t do.”

“Somebody oughta tell us what’s going on.”

“I’ll tell you what’s going on.”

“Well, not to speak ill of the dead, but…”

Pastor Schorr came into the room, and the conversation suddenly changed to small talk.

Liv slipped out the door and made her getaway.

Once outside, she stood indecisive on the sidewalk. She probably should have skipped church and taken Whiskey to visit with Leo while Pastor Schorr reminded everyone to be a good neighbor and not jump to conclusions. Which they had been for as long as it took them to get to the fellowship room. Then all bets were off. But she couldn’t blame them. Everyone was affected when something like this happened, and they couldn’t get back to normal until the crisis was over.

But should she wait for Miss Ida and Miss Edna in the parking lot or walk home to get Whiskey?

She did neither, but turned in the opposite direction. If the sisters couldn’t find her, they would figure she had walked home and wouldn’t be worried. But she didn’t go home. She’d done a lot of thinking last night. Both Ted and the pastor said that Chaz had returned home. But he obviously wasn’t broadcasting the fact. And why was that?

Of all the times to revert back to his totally lazy, bonehead self, now was not it. Leo needed him. And he probably didn’t even know about what was going on or care if he did.

Really, the man was beyond annoying; he was downright callous. She marched right past the rectory and crossed the street. She wasn’t really dressed for a confrontation, since she was wearing heels and a summery dress.

But she’d held her own with some pretty out-there clients while wearing higher heels and shorter skirts than she was wearing now.

Mr. I-Won’t-Get-Involved Newspaper Editor was about to get a taste of event planner on a tear.

Liv wasn’t surprised to find the
Clarion
office locked and dark. Undaunted, she tried the front windows. Of course, she would never climb in without calling out first. But they, too, were locked.

She tested each reachable window as she circled the house to the back door, which of course was locked. But knowing Chaz, she was pretty certain that if he bothered to lock the door… She rose up on her toes, reached up to feel the top of the bracket that held the porch light, and—
voila!
There was the spare key.

She inserted the key in the lock and turned it; the door opened, and Liv had her first qualm.

“Chaz? Chaz, are you here?”

She got just what she expected. Nothing, not even the rustle of someone turning over in his sleep. She stood there deliberating. She needed to talk to him. And besides, he might be sick, he might have fallen, though a thirtysomething-year-old man could probably still reach for his cell phone. Or he could be the victim of a robbery and lying bleeding to death.

She stepped all the way into the house. Was that a creak she heard?

“Chaz!”

Maybe he really was sleeping; maybe he was sleeping with someone; maybe that’s why no one had seen him. He was having a torrid…

“Chaz are you decent?” Still no answer. “Okay, that does it. I’m coming in.”

She stepped through the door into what she thought was the kitchen, groped for a light switch. It was a kitchen. A very messy, dirty, disgusting kitchen, though when she looked farther than the pizza boxes, dirty plates, and rows of beer and milk bottles, she could see that it once had been very nice.

Wooden cabinets, a wooden table in the middle of the room piled with cast-off newspapers. Not the
Clarion
, she realized as she looked closer. The
Los Angeles Times.
And recent editions. Was he feeling homesick? Why didn’t he go for a visit? No one was stopping him.

Or maybe that’s where he’d been. She picked up one of the folded newspapers. Coverage of a trial of some banker accused of killing his wife. She shivered. Who would want to live in a place like that?

Of course, who was she to judge? She’d spent most of her life in New York City, where things like that happened. So far she didn’t miss too much about it, except maybe Bloomies, SoHo, the Met, Central Park… .

But she’d been here for a matter of months, and Manhattan was only a few hours away. Chaz had been here for several years, and LA was not in commuting distance. Was he finally missing his former profession of investigative reporting?

She tossed the paper back on the table. Well, if he wanted a murder to investigate, she just happened to have one on hand. She opened a cabinet under the sink, found a box of trash bags, and began methodically dumping food and take-out cartons into it.

“What the hell are you doing?”

Liv squeaked and whirled around. A man was standing in the doorway. Tall, thin, scruffy beard, beady eyes, and dirty hair that fell into his eyes. He was wearing a grungy white T-shirt with the evidence of the pizza she’d just thrown away dribbled down the front.

She opened her mouth to ask, “Who are you and what are you doing here?” when she recognized him.

“Chaz?”

“Who else did you expect?” he said in a gravelly voice.

“You’re back,” she said. Which was self-evident, a fact that Chaz should gleefully point out. Only he didn’t.

He stepped farther into the room. In the overhead light he looked even worse than before.

“Good heavens, what happened to you?”

“What? You broke in here just to ask stupid questions?” He moved slowly into the room, looked around. “Since you’re here, do you see a can of coffee somewhere?”

“Are you sick?”

He shrugged.

“Is that yes or no? Should I call an ambulance?”

He snorted.

“Where have you been? You look…”

He smiled, but it was a tired parody of his usual leer. “Beat to shit? Thanks for sharing.”

“Well, you do look a little tired.”

“Long day.”

It looked like it had been a long seven weeks… if she had been counting. Which she hadn’t been. Not exactly. Not all the time.

“It’s only noon. Have you been working on a story?” She said it mainly to get a spark of the old snarky Chaz. She’d even be happy at this point to learn he’d been staying out late to research the spawning habits of lake trout. Anything but this… she groped for a word: Dejection? Defeat? Apathy? Whatever it was, she didn’t like it.

“Ah,” Chaz said, and lifted a coffee can from beneath the pile of papers, sending most of them to the floor.

“Why don’t you go take a shower and pull yourself together while I make the coffee?” She snatched the can from his hand and looked around the mess for the coffeemaker.

And was sorry when she found it. The carafe was half full, and there was green stuff floating on top. She gingerly put it in the sink and turned on the hot water.

“Actually I hadn’t intended on pulling myself together.”

“Go,” she said over her shoulder. “Before I use all the hot water trying to get this coffeepot disinfected.”

“Did you walk all the way over here in those shoes just to nag me?”

“No, I wore these shoes to go to church—”

Chaz made a sound that might be a derisive laugh. Or maybe a cough. “If you haven’t noticed, you missed the church and came to…” He seemed to lose his train of thought and looked vaguely around the room. “Here.”

“Are you on drugs?”

“I wish.”

“Chaz, what’s wrong?”

“God, I’ll go take a shower just to shut you up.” He wandered out of the kitchen.

Liv stared after him. Okay, he was lazy and uninterested in current affairs. He was sarcastic and smarmy, but there had always been an underlying humor to it… until today.

She didn’t like the Chaz she saw today. The humor was gone, the obnoxiousness was gone; he just looked angry and depressed.

She scrubbed the coffeepot and started the coffee, then began to gather up the newspapers that littered the floor and table. Picked up the section with the article about the banker on trial for murder. Grabbed for another section and found a follow-up article with the headline “Banker Freed on Murder Charges.”

Another section. Another article about the same trial.

She put the papers on the counter and began to read. She heard the shower come on above her head. She hadn’t read two paragraphs before she forgot about the reason she had come. Forgot everything but what she was reading.

She recognized the guy’s name. She’d seen it when she’d first met Chaz and had Googled him to find out what his story really was. A hotshot investigative reporter, respected by his peers, whose last story—that she could find anyway—was about the kidnapping of a banker’s wife. Liv bet dollars to donuts this was the same man.

He’d been accused of planning the whole kidnapping and ransom, and killing his wife while playing the inconsolable husband. Knowing Chaz, he’d followed the case to the very end, maybe had been responsible for uncovering the banker’s plot. Is that where he’d been? At the trial? As a witness? Or to make sure justice was done?

The guy had been acquitted. Chaz must have thought the man was guilty or he would be elated and celebrating instead of holed up like a hermit.

The water turned off above her, and she hurried to wash the least disgusting mug.

When Chaz came back a few minutes later, clean and shaved, he looked more like his old self. Which gave Liv a little thrill of pleasure… to see him looking better.

She handed him his coffee.

He took it with a scowl. “You’re like a midge, you know that?”

“Those little bugs that sting the heck out of you?”

“Yep, those bugs.”

“Just because I couldn’t stand the mess in your kitchen?” she said, glad to see him beginning to get back some of his old attitude.

“Because I know you want something and it isn’t my hot self. So why did you come?”

“Actually, are you aware there was a murder Friday night?”

Chaz bobbled his mug and coffee splashed on his hand. “Ow,” he said, quickly putting the mug down and flinging coffee off his fingers.

“I guess that’s a no.”

He raised one sardonic eyebrow, and she felt the stirrings of hope.

“Well, let me tell you about it.”

“Do I have a choice?”

“No, because I think even you will be interested in this case.”

Another snort. “I doubt it.” He picked up his coffee.

“At the reenactment Friday night everything went perfectly, the ghost signaled from the roof, General Haynes galloped across the lawn, the patriots swept down the lawn, got in their boats, and the fireworks started.”

“Fascinating.”

“Then the lantern started flashing from the roof again.”

She saw a brief flicker of interest and hurried on. “Ted recognized it as being Morse code for SOS.”

“Henry does love his little bit of drama.”

“We went to investigate.”

“Of course you did.”

Liv gritted her teeth.

“Jacob Rundle had been stabbed with a bayonet.”

“Jacob Rundle doesn’t give the signal.”

“Well he did Friday, and someone killed him.”

“Where was Henry?”

At last, a show of interest, small though it was.

“He wasn’t there. Just Rundle in a patriot uniform.”

Chaz shrugged. “Bill will handle it.”

“I’m sure he will, but there was a witness.”

Chaz let out a long sigh. “Okay, I’ll take the bait. Who?”

“Leo Morgan.”

She had his attention. He went absolutely still. “What was he doing on the roof?” He tried to ask the question casually, but Liv could see the wheels already turning. She had him.

“He wanted to ask the ghost of Henry Gallantine where the treasure was hidden.”

“Oh my God. What would make him do something like that? Never mind. That was a rhetorical question.”

“Well, I’ll give you a non-rhetorical answer. He wanted to find the treasure and give it to Pastor Schorr for the community center. We found him cowering on the roof, holding the musket that killed Rundle.”

“He was shot with an old musket? No one heard? It would have to have happened before the fireworks began, though it would have made more sense to wait and have the noise camouflaged. Just another one of the explosions.”

Thank you, thank you.
At least he was asking questions. “He wasn’t shot, he was bayoneted.”

“Ugh.” Chaz went to the coffeepot and poured himself another cup.

“Bill questioned Leo and sent him home. But someone threw a rock through the window of his house and his mother kicked him out. He’s staying with Phillip Schorr for the time being. We’re all concerned for his safety. Both from the killer and from some of the hotheads who were quick to accuse him of the murder because he’s a little different.”

“Leo wouldn’t hurt anybody.” Chaz ran a hand over his face. “Bill will take care of it.”

“He’s investigating the murder, of course, but I’m more concerned about Leo.”

“Bill will put a security detail on him.”

“He doesn’t have that kind of manpower.”

“Then have your big marine from Bayside Security do it.”

“Chaz, Leo needs your help. He trusts you. Are you going to throw him to the wolves?”

“Don’t be overdramatic.”

“I’m not. Bill may have to put Leo into protective custody until the murder’s solved.”

“What? No way. Leo would be totally confused and frightened. It’s a terrible idea.”

“I thought so, too, but Pastor Schorr doesn’t think he can keep him safe at the rectory, since he’d be left alone while Phillip goes about his church duties.”

“So it’s Phillip now? You do get around.”

“Chaz, for crying out loud. Do you want Leo behind bars, even if it’s only for his own safety?”

“Bill can’t do that,” said Chaz. “Did Leo recognize the killer?”

“He said it was the ghost. That he had a cape and no face.”

“Probably covered in a nylon stocking, oldest disguise in the book. No leads?”

“How would I know? I didn’t even know
you
were back.”

Chaz put his mug on the table. “Is Leo there now? I’ll go talk to him.”

At last
, Liv thought, and followed him toward the door.

He turned on her, stopping her mid-step. “Where are you going?”

“With you.”

“I thought you were here to clean my house.”

“Then think again.”

He leered at her, that smarmy smile, the humorous eyes. She never thought she’d say it, but she was relieved and happy that the old Chaz was finally making a comeback.

They left through the back door, and Liv noticed that Chaz didn’t bother to lock it. It wasn’t a safe thing to do, but it was definitely a Chaz thing to do. Things were suddenly looking up.

No one answered the bell at the rectory.

“I doubt if Pastor Schorr is back from the service yet,” Liv said.

Chaz rang again. “He’s probably been told not to open the door to anyone.”

“Then we’ll have to wait.”

They sat on the front steps.

“People might get the wrong idea, us waiting here for the preacher,” Chaz said. He gave her knees an appraising look.

Liv didn’t bother to answer, just pulled her skirt down.

It was only a few minutes before they saw the pastor striding home, his black cassock whipping behind him.

He lifted a hand when he saw Chaz and Liv sitting on his front steps.

“Greeting or benediction?” Chaz said under his breath.

Liv cut him a quelling look and stood.

“I thought you might be here,” the pastor said without preamble. “Chaz, good to see you. I saw your lights the other night and figured you must be home. Leo will be glad to see you, too.”

He unlocked the front door and ushered them in. Leo was sitting on the couch in front of the television, watching a cartoon that appeared to be
Davey and Goliath
.

Phillip Schorr smiled apologetically. “I figured since he couldn’t be at Sunday school this morning, he could study his Bible. Though I suppose it’s rather inappropriate, considering my sermon today.”

“Throwing the first stone,” Liv told Chaz.