Whiskey Rebellion (Romantic Mystery/Comedy) Book 1 (Addison Holmes Mysteries) (29 page)

“I didn’t have anything to do with your loan being turned down,” he stammered out. “And I won’t have you coming here and threatening me.”

I was a little surprised by his fear. I didn’t think our last conversation had resulted in anything but me blowing hot air.

“I’m not here to talk about the house,” I assured him.

“Good, because I thought for sure you’d want to try and buy it again since Veronica Wade decided to withdraw her offer.”

“Wait, Veronica withdrew her offer?”

“I thought you knew. After Greg—” he said, trailing off awkwardly. “But someone else snapped it up before I could contact you and let you know it was available. Honest.”

“
It’s all right,” I said. I mentally shook off the news and tried to remember why I’d come. “Really, that’s not why I’ve come to see you, Mr. Hyatt. Would you mind if I came in for a few minutes? This is very important.”

He stepped back reluctantly and let me through the front door.

I walked into a white marbled entryway that looked cold to the touch, and followed him in to the large living area that I was familiar with from the pictures taken from the night before.

“Please have a seat,” he said gesturing to the sofa.

I looked at the couch and the chair sitting beside it and thought of all the things that had been done on it the night before.

“No, thank you,” I said cheerily. “I don’t want to take up much of your time.”

He looked at me with a mixture of impatience and displeasure and nodded his head. “I’m very busy, Ms. Holmes. I’m working out of my home office today and have many things to do.”

Like foreclosing on widows or having kinky sex on your desk
? I wanted to ask
.

“Is your estate manager here by chance?” I asked.

“No, Loretta took the day off to see to some personal business.”

“Good, because I think she’s been killing people.” My subtlety even amazed me at times.

John Hyatt’s mouth opened and closed like a fish. “That’s preposterous. Why would you come into my home and make accusations against a woman who has worked for me for seven years? I think you need to leave now.”

Sweat beaded at the top of his lip and on his brow.

“Please listen to me, Mr. Hyatt,” I begged. “I’m scared for my own life. Please.”

I brought a couple of tears to my eyes and tried my best to look d
istraught. I could see his worry ebb and a calculating look come into his eye. John Hyatt wasn’t nearly as good of an actor as I was.

“Yes, I can see that you’re quite serious. Let me get you some water, and then I want you to sit down and tell me why you think Loretta could commit murder.”

He hustled off to the kitchen and came back with a glass of water that was sloshing over the edge of the glass. “Sit down, sit down,” he said pushing me into the infamous chair from the night before and shoving the glass into my hands. “Tell me what happened.”

I grimaced as my behind touched the upholstery of the chair, but hopefully it came across as fear instead of disgust. I had to make a decision of how much truth to tell and which lies he’d believe.

“You know that I took a job at the McClean Detective Agency to earn extra money,” I said, looking at him for confirmation. I wanted him to feel like he had the upper hand. “Well, before I worked for Kate, I took a job at The Foxy Lady.”

“Oh, my,” he said. If I hadn’t been looking for it, I would have thought he was genuinely surprised. “Isn’t that where your principal was killed?”

“Exactly.” I beamed at him like he was one of my brightest students. “I came by your house last week to talk to you about my home loan, and I met Loretta. I knew I’d seen her somewhere before, but I couldn’t remember where. There’s something about the way she moves,” I said absently.

John Hyatt squinted his eyes like he was trying to read between the lines and see what I was really saying, but I smiled at him guilelessly and his expression smoothed out.

“So when the police showed me the surveillance tapes and asked if I recognized anyone, I was able to point her out.”

In reality, I hadn’t realized that the woman on the surveillance tapes was Loretta until I’d seen the photographs of her last night and the pieces of the puzzle started to fit together.

“And she wasn’t there alone.” I tried to look desperate and devastated and figured I was pulling it off when he took a hanky out of his pocket and gave it to me to dry my tears. “I’m embarrassed to say this, but she was with Greg Nelson.”

“Your ex-fiancé?”

“Yes, yes. So you can see why this is such an embarrassment. Don’t you understand what this means?”

John Hyatt shook his head slowly.

“It means that my principal caught them there together doing things that could ruin both of them in a small town like this one, and so when he got up to leave Loretta followed him and killed him in the parking lot.”

John was looking at me like a child and shaking his head. “Addison, that is hardly conclusive evidence of murder. It co
uld just as easily have been Greg.”

“But now he’s dead too.” I decided now was where I should start to lie a little. “When I identified Loretta as your estate manager the police put her under surveillance. They asked Mr. Mooney next door to keep an eye out for anything suspicious. I happened to be with the detective in charge when Mr. Mooney called him and said he had important information, but Mr. Mooney was killed before we could speak to him. It’s obvious Loretta didn’t want him telling her secrets. I can only imagine what it was he wanted to share.”

John Hyatt looked a little green around the gills. He was staring off into the unknown and I could see sweat stains under the arms of his expensive golf shirt.

“And what about Greg Nelson?” he asked softly. “What’s your theory on his murder?”

“Well it’s pretty obvious to me that she killed Greg because he knew too much. He was poisoned, you know,” I said conspiratorially. “And everybody knows that poison is a woman’s murder weapon. If Loretta was threatened because Greg was going to turn her in it would be the perfect motive for killing him. Of course, she kind of botched that job, because she didn’t give him enough and he managed to escape from wherever she was keeping him. The police probably never would have figured it out otherwise. I guess it was just her bad luck.”

I choked back a sob that was for real this time and stood up. “I’m sorry. Would you mind if I use
d your restroom to put myself back together? This has been so difficult for me.” I dropped my head down and my shoulders shook as I poured on the drama.

“Yes, of course, right this way,” he said robotically. John Hyatt’s mind was obviously elsewhere
. He showed me through a long corridor that led to a large guest suite on the first floor. It was on the backside of the house and had its own French doors that led out to a private patio and hot tub. He showed me where the bathroom door was and left me alone.

I closed and locked the door behind him and turned on the water in the faucet. I needed to get upstairs to the master bedroom, and I had no idea how I was going to do it.

I left the water running and left the bathroom, closing the door behind me. The guest suite was spacious and private, but I was afraid John would come back and check on me if I didn’t get out of there soon. I opened the French doors quietly and slipped out. I used a large shrub as cover while I looked for a way to get to the second floor. My answer came when I noticed the vine covered trellis that attached to the second floor balcony. And if I wasn’t mistaken that balcony led to the master suite.

I looked down at my flip-flops, kicked them off and was glad I’d at least had the good sense to wear shorts instead of a skirt. I started the slow climb to the top and had an epiphany that I wasn’t as young as I’d used to be.

I put my foot through another rung and heard the distinct crack of wood snapping just before the bottom half of the trellis crumbled to kindling twenty feet below. I was hanging by both hands and my feet were flailing in the air.

“Oh, shit.” Upper body strength had never been my strong point. My life hung in the balance for a couple of minutes before I realized how much it would hurt to fall, so I pulled with al
l my might until I was able to hitch a leg over the balcony rail.

I laid on the hard floor gasping for breath and knew I didn’t have a lot of time left to do what I’d come for, so I rolled over and pushed myself to my feet.

I hit a stroke of luck when I found the balcony doors were unlocked. I slipped in as quietly as my heaving chest would allow and into an ornate and fussy room in shades of blue. John Hyatt was a man of many facets.

I searched under the bed and through a closet full of navy blue and cha
rcoal gray suits. Ties were color coordinated on a tie rack and shoes were lined at the bottom of the closet. The overly fussy bedroom didn’t match the obsessiveness of the closet.

I riffled through dresser drawers and looked in the medicine cabinet in the
adjacent bathroom. There was nothing of interest anywhere. Then I noticed the sliding door that was in the corner of the bathroom and painted the same color as the wall. And then I saw it was locked.

I pulled as hard as I could but the door wouldn’t budge. I dug through the bathroom cabinets looking for anything that could pry the door open. I found a metal pick like the ones they use at the dentist office to scrape away plaque. It would have to do.

I slipped the tool in the silver lock like they do on the television and moved it around. I had no experience picking locks, but I figured they would teach me that in my private investigator’s training.

I crouched down on the floor and jiggled for everything I was worth. It was while I was on my knees that I noticed the small key on the floor behind the toilet. I picked it up gingerly because there was never
anything good that happened around a man’s toilet.

I stopped to listen and only heard the sound of my pulse beating rapidly, so I slipped it in the lock and winced as
the sound of the tumblers seemed to echo through the room.

I slid the door open and felt for a light switch along the wall. I pressed a button and lights flickered on, one row after another until a closet the size of a bedroom appeared. In it were rows and rows of women’s clothes and shoes. And along the far back wall were wigs of every length and color.

Loretta Swanson hadn’t taken a day off for personal reasons. Loretta Swanson was waiting in the closet until John Hyatt decided to bring her out again.

John Hyatt and
Loretta Swanson were the same person.

The pictures hadn’t lied, and no one had been more surprised than me to look at those photographs and see that Loretta Swanson had a penis. Everyone in town was going to be surprised that John Hyatt spent his spare time dressing like a woman and making out with men in titty bars.

I poked through the room quickly because I knew my time was running out. I’d already been out of his sight for more than ten minutes composing myself. He’d be knocking on the bathroom door downstairs before too long.

I opened drawers along the walls and only felt the slight pull of jealousy as I saw the cashmere sweaters and expensive jewelry. Loretta Swanson had good taste for a man.

Sitting in a drawer with a diamond tennis bracelet and a broach the size of a hen’s egg was a small pistol and a Swiss Army knife. I knew that with the photographs I’d taken and the new knowledge that Loretta Swanson had been at The Foxy Lady, Nick would have enough to get a warrant to search the premises.

I was satisfied that justice could now be done, so I closed and locked the door and slipped back to the bedroom. I realized
only then that I was stuck on the second floor because my way back down was lying in a heap on the ground.

I listened at the bedroom door and opened it slowly. I looked both ways and slunk along the wall until I reached the stairs. I stopped when I heard the sound of
John’s voice speaking from somewhere in the house. I assumed John was on the telephone since I could only hear one side of his conversation.

“We’ve got serious problems here. I’m telling you she knows something,” John Hyatt said into the phone. I had no idea who he was talking to, but I had a sneaking suspicion he was talking about me. As far as I could tell the conversation was coming from a room somewhere under the stairs. Probably his office.

“Listen, this is all your fault. You shouldn’t have followed me.”

There was silence while he listened.

“I don’t know how she knows, but it’s only a matter of time before the cops stumble onto the truth. Everybody knows that she can’t keep her mouth shut.”

I put my hands on my hips indignantly. I could keep a secret when I wanted too. It’s just that there were very few secrets that weren’t interesting enough to pass on to others.

“Just get over here,” he demanded. “I’m tired of being the one who always has to get us out of these messes.”

I hurried down the stairs and toward the front door as fast as my sore feet could carry me. I had no idea how I was going to explain my lack of shoes, but all I knew was I had to get out of the house.
Now.