Wild Ride: A Changing Gears Novel (3 page)

“That would be my guess. He was shot, bundled into the jacket, and brought here.”

Great. Just great. They couldn’t dump the body in Elda’s Cafe, or Val’s goddamn doughnut shop, no. The murderer had to put the dead guy in her library.

“Why? Why would anyone put a body here? Where I’d be bound to find it?”

The look Duncan Forbes sent her was piercing. His eyes were a deep, earthy blue. Not cloudless skies, or limpid-lakes blue, but the blue of lapis dug out of the ground.

“I’ve been wondering that myself,” he said. “Do you have any enemies?”

Besides you? she almost answered, but she couldn’t return a flip answer to his question, given the circumstances. “What are you suggesting?”

“I’m trying to figure out why the killer dumped the body here, where you were obviously going to be the first one to stumble over it. Why?”

The chill spread from her arms and danced down her spine. “Of course I don’t have enemies. Anyway, I fail to see how putting a dead body in my library is punishing me.”

“Maybe it’s a warning, or message of some kind. Are you in any kind of trouble?”

He continued to gaze at her with concern which immediately had her stretching to think of anyone who might wish her harm. Winnifred Pouch, who’d been an unsuccessful candidate for a part-time librarian’s job, had been pretty upset with her. But Myrna, who’d got the job was better qualified.

When she’d taken to traveling fifty miles to have her hair done rather than entrusting it to Katie’s Kut ‘n’ Kurl, Katie had made her hurt feelings known to everyone in town who wanted to listen, but that was as far as she could stretch in search of enemies.

She and her cousin Gillian had had some major fights in their time, but they were family. That was different. Anyway, who was Duncan Forbes to be giving her the willies? If what he’d told her was true, he was a college teacher, not a cop. Obviously, the man was having the first bit of excitement in his humdrum life and it had gone straight to his head.

“Anything you want to tell me before the cops arrive?”

“Like what?” The only thing she wanted to tell him was good-bye. But before she got the chance, Tom Perkins arrived. He called her name and she answered with relief, “Over here.”

She’d known Tom since they were teenagers. A solid, good-looking kid who excelled at sports and won sportsmanship awards and had only ever fought once as she recalled—when a handicapped kid got picked on—Tom had the perfect job. However, if there’d ever been a murder in Swiftcurrent, she hadn’t heard of it. Didn’t look like Tom had had much truck with murder, either. He turned pale gray at the sight of the dead man and sweat broke out on his forehead.

“Holy mother of God,” he said. “Somebody shot the poor schmuck right through the heart.”

Alex hadn’t thought about it in such graphic terms, but the hole was in the left side of the corpse’s chest. Yep, right through the heart pretty much summed it up.

Once Tom had pulled himself together, he took charge and Alex was happy to shift the responsibility. He checked for vital signs, but it didn’t take long to confirm the guy was dead.

Tom considered the man staring sightlessly up at him and made a quick visual scan of the area. “Did either of you move the body?”

“I flipped him over to see if he was dead,” Forbes said in that same cool, matter-of-fact tone he’d used on her.

“And you are?”

“Duncan Forbes. I arrived in town yesterday. I’ll be in Swiftcurrent for a few weeks writing a book.”

Tom’s stare told them both what he thought of civilians interfering in crime scenes, but he didn’t say anything. He squatted, slipped on surgical gloves, and went systematically through the dead man’s pockets. They yielded nothing. No wallet, no ID, not so much as a stick of gum or candy wrapper.

“I want you both to go into Alex’s office and wait there for me. Don’t touch anything on the way.”

She nodded. He got out a cell phone, while still crouched over the body, and she knew the quiet library would soon be a lot busier. “Bert, we’ve got a homicide,” she heard him say, obviously talking to Chief Bert Harmon, a hefty southerner who did the administrative work and left Tom to handle law enforcement. “We’re going to need a Major Crimes Team. Can you start calling them in? I’ll call the M.E.”

She shuddered at the thought. Because Swiftcurrent’s population wasn’t large enough to support much of a police force, the area shared resources. She knew Tom had been called out to help in other towns when people went missing or a major crime occurred. Obviously, it was now Swiftcurrent’s turn to call in the team.

“Yes,” Tom continued, “the area’s secure. No. Victim’s a stranger. No ID. Right, Bert. When you come over, can you bring the camera?” He glanced over at Duncan and his gaze hardened. “I’m not sure. Maybe.” She didn’t want to think about what question he was answering.

Duncan glanced at his pale companion. So she did go by Alex. The shortened name suited her. It was crisp and businesslike but with a hint of the more exotic and oh-so¬feminine Alexandra. “Are you okay?”

“I’m all right. It’s hearing Tom call it a homicide that makes me feel weak at the knees.”

Her eyes were soft now, the gray of mourning doves and gentle rains.
When he’d first arrived, the sergeant had looked as though he might toss his cookies and mess up the crime scene, but he managed to pull it together. He might not be all that familiar with murders, but he knew the drill.

As he and Alex made their way to her office, he glanced around but nothing seemed out of place but one book on the floor that she stooped to pick up and replace. Was it a coincidence that the body had been placed in the art section? Duncan didn’t believe so.

Once in her office, he found her workspace was as efficient as he would have guessed. Neat and well organized. A computer already humming. She must have come in here first, then, before discovering the body. The scent of coffee reached him and he realized she’d started that as well, in what must be her daily routine—before her day went all to hell.

While she sank into her desk chair and stared blankly ahead to her computer screen, he slipped quietly out of the office and followed his nose to the coffee room. He poured two mugs and brought them into her office. “You take milk and sugar?”

Alex clasped the mug in her hands, obviously needing the warmth, but didn’t sip. “Do you mind? There’s skim in the fridge.”

He fetched the milk and watched her add a healthy dose. Then she sipped and nodded, sending him a small smile and pushing the carton back his way. Obligingly, he returned the milk to the fridge.

Sipping his own coffee, he returned to her office and sat in a visitor’s chair that was too small for his frame. The blond wood dug into his back below the shoulder blades and the too-short seat cut off the circulation in his thighs.

At least she brewed decent coffee, he thought, as he scanned her office, disappointingly lacking in clues about her life. No photos, stuffed toys, dishes of candy. The only personal touch—if you could call it that—was a framed copy of her master’s degree in library sciences, from the University of Illinois.

He was lost in his own thoughts, and it seemed Alex was, too. She pretended to check her e-mail but he thought she was staring at the screen to avoid having to talk to him.

“Don’t delete any e-mails. Just in case,” he warned her and finally saw some animation in her pale face when she glared at him. That was more like the woman he’d met yesterday. She must be getting over the shock.

A portly, older, uniformed officer arrived with a camera and video recorder and a black plastic case. For fingerprints, Duncan guessed. “That’s the police chief,” Alex informed him. “Bert Harmon.”

Another portly guy, a little younger, came in right behind him and Harmon had a few words with him before turning him away. “Who’s that?”

“Arnold Black. The custodian. He brings in the books from the drop-off bin every morning.”

“So he’s got keys.”

“Yes.” Then her eyes widened. “Arnold Black would never hurt a fly.”

After a while, Perkins came into the office with another uniform. In the hour or so since they’d found the body, about half a dozen officers had arrived, including two plainclothes guys who looked like FBI.

“Alex, would you mind going next door and giving your statement to Detective Remco here?”

She nodded and rose, tossing a questioning look his way. “I’m going to take Mr. Forbes’s statement right here.”

Duncan pulled out his wallet and dug out a business card from Swarthmore. It gave his position—Associate Professor, Art History—and the usual contact info. Duncan pulled out a pen and added his cell number. As he handed it to the sergeant, Alex tilted her head as though to read it, so he scribbled his cell number on a second card and handed it to her.

“I’m currently on sabbatical from Swarthmore, writing a book. I came here looking for a quiet place to write.”

Perkins scratched his chin with the top of a ballpoint. “You’re writing a book about art?” From the inflection in the man’s voice, he was questioning either Duncan’s sanity or his masculinity. He wasn’t certain which.

“Yes.”

Alex left, but not before he’d caught her blink of surprise. She either hadn’t believed him, or thought he taught at some McCollege in the hinterlands. What a trusting woman.

Perkins pulled out a small tape recorder and a notebook. “We don’t have fancy interview rooms next door, so I’d as soon take your statement right here.”

“Fine by me.”

The sergeant started the recorder, gave his name, Duncan’s name, and the date and time of the interview.

“Where are you staying while you’re in town, Professor?”

“Riverside Cottage Suites. Unit eight.”

The sergeant nodded. “You’ll need to stay in town while we investigate.”

“I’ll be around for a couple of months, most likely.” He’d decided to spend a bit of time with Forrest’s granddaughters and anyone else in town who might have known Franklin Forrest. Dig around a little. Try and find clues to the missing painting while writing his book.

“Do you have any other ID on you, Professor?”

And so the tedious interview began. The cop might be the plodding, methodical sort, but he wasn’t stupid. His gaze was penetrating and his seemingly idle questions anything but. Duncan wasn’t stupid, either. With no decent suspects on the horizon, he, the stranger in town, was the perfect guy to pin the murder on.

“It’s quite a coincidence, you and the dead guy both showing up in town on the same day.”

“Coincidences happen.”

“Cops hate them.” Perkins scratched the back of his head. “Why’d you move the body?”

“I didn’t move it. I flipped it over to confirm the guy was dead. Can’t give CPR to someone’s back.”

“He was pretty far beyond CPR.” Perkins leaned forward and sent Duncan a man-to-man look. “We’ve got a problem. When you rolled the body over, you got your fingerprints on him. That doesn’t look good for you. If there’s something you want to get off your chest, now’s a good time.”

“Are you planning to arrest me?”

“Why don’t you tell me what really happened.”

He couldn’t blame the guy. He’d have acted the same in his shoes.
“I arrived at the library right after it opened because I wanted to get an early start on my work. Ms. Forrest came running out of the library and told me there was a dead man inside. We came back inside together.”

“Did you know the victim?”

“No.” It was true enough. They’d never been introduced.

“Were you ever alone with the body?”

“Yes. When Ms. Forrest went to her office to phone you. She was gone about three minutes.”

“What did you do while she was gone?”

“I told you. I turned him over to confirm he was dead.”

“Anything else?”

Sergeant Perkins wasn’t going to like this, but he’d find out as soon as the forensics report came in. “I checked for ID.”

“Did you find any?”

He narrowed his eyes. “No.”

“Professor, could I have your permission to search that bag you’ve got there?”

There was silence as they stared at each other. The tiny sound of the whirring tape was audible. If he refused he looked guilty and they’d get a search warrant. “All right.”

“And would you mind emptying your pockets for me? It’s routine.”
Yeah, right.

He passed over his bag and made noisy work out of dumping change out of his pockets along with his wallet, Swiss army knife, and keys. The sergeant opened his bag and went through it pretty thoroughly. He opened the laptop computer but didn’t try to boot it up. If he was disappointed not to find the dead man’s wallet or the gun that killed him, Perkins hid it well.

“Thanks for your cooperation,” he said, after he’d flipped through Duncan’s wallet and returned everything.

Perkins leaned back and put an ankle over one knee. “So, what’s your book about?” he asked.

“The history of a few famous French Impressionist paintings.” In fact, the book was about how those paintings had gone missing, and the story of their recovery. One day, he hoped the story of Van Gogh’s Olive Trees and Farmhouse would be a chapter, but that one was still being written.

Alex drank three cups of coffee, not because she needed any more jitters in her system, but for something to do. After the initial drama and adrenaline rush of finding a dead body between Picasso and Martha Stewart, the business of documenting the scant evidence and seeing the body off the premises took on a tedious life of its own.

By the time the grim lump was trundled out of the building on a stretcher into the coroner’s van, it was almost two o’clock. A team of half a dozen people, most of them called in from the county sheriff’s office and state and local agencies, were busy out in her library, while several more officers searched outside.

Remco was a hard-eyed detective she’d never seen before who never stopped moving as he interviewed her. A foot tapping here, fingers drumming his knee there, now shifting in his chair as though it were uncomfortable, then rubbing his stomach as though he had an ulcer. And his questions came fast and sudden, making her feel tongue-tied and guilty, as though she’d committed a terrible crime, not discovered one.

“Did you know the victim?”

“No.”

“Had you ever seen him before today?”

“No.”

“When did you first meet Duncan Forbes?”

“Yesterday.”

“Do you own a gun?”

“No!”

Had she heard anything? Seen anything? Seen anyone? Noticed anything out of the ordinary when she arrived this morning?

“No.” Only the dead man.

By the time Remco was done with her she felt light-headed and her mouth was so dry her tongue felt like flypaper. So she drank more coffee. And waited.

“When can I reopen the library, Bert?” she asked the chief when she passed his open office door. She could already see paperwork piling up on his desk.

“The forensics boys should be done today. Tom or I will call you when they’re done and you can get the cleaners in tonight and open tomorrow, probably.” His kindly face squinted as he glanced at his paper-strewn desk. “Next day at the latest.”

At the thought of what the cleaners would be working on, she shuddered. Since no one had told her she could leave, she headed back to her office in the library and waited some more.

As did Duncan Forbes.

Finally, Tom came into her office, where she’d been pretending to work and her companion had watched the investigation going on outside her office window.

“Sorry we had to keep you so long, Alex,” he said. “You’re free to go.”

“You, too,” he said to Duncan Forbes. “Remember, don’t leave town without checking with me first.”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

As they finally left her office, he asked, “Are you hungry?”

Amazingly, she was. “Starving. Though it seems kind of tactless under the circumstances.”

“We can be tactless together. Come on, I’ll buy you lunch.” He sent her a grin that was far too attractive for any scruffy art professor. “I’ve still got a few bucks left after paying my fine. And by the way, thanks for not telling the cops I’m already a felon in Swiftcurrent.”

“You should be too ashamed to bring up that incident,” she said, trying hard not to respond to the infectious grin, but so happy to forget the awful morning for a few minutes that she was willing to forgive him his lapses in judgment yesterday. “And you a teacher, too.”

“I want to talk to you.”

In her experience, when men said they wanted to talk to her, they wanted to take her to bed. And, in spite of a certain sexual appeal that pulled at her, Duncan Forbes was not a contender. She had a busy few months ahead of her and no time for an affair with a rule-breaker. He was so not her type.

But the alternative was going home to an empty apartment and brooding. And as little as she liked the virtual stranger in front of her, he had the attraction of having shared today’s ordeal. He was the one person she could hash it all over with without having to explain the details. If she got hit on in the process, she could squash him easily enough. She’d had plenty of practice.

“All right.”

“This is your town,” he said, not seeming remotely surprised that she’d agreed to eat lunch with him. Of the two of them, she bet she was more shocked. “Where to?”

They walked to the main doors and she peeked out. The middle of the afternoon wasn’t the social high point of the day in downtown Swiftcurrent. Most people were at work, at home with kids or at the grocery store. But it was a small town. They hadn’t had a murder since–since never, that she knew of, so it wasn’t surprising that many of the town’s curious had managed to find their way downtown. On the other side of the yellow crime scene tape, a small crowd was gathered, talking in hushed voices as though in church. Or in the library itself.

If she and Duncan passed through the second set of double doors she’d be as good as mobbed. There was even a TV crew and Dash Trembley from the Swiftcurrent News hanging around out there.

“We’ll go out the employees’ entrance,” she said, backing away from the main doors. “We could go across the way to Elda’s Country Cafe where the food’s pretty good, but we’d be surrounded in seconds.”

A grimace from her companion had her nodding. “If we want real food, we drive past all the fast food franchises along the highway till we hit Delaney’s, a steak place, where with luck no one will know about the murder.”

“Done. But my vehicle’s at the cottage where I’m staying. I walked up.”

“My car’s out back.” She turned and led the way, already rooting in her bag for her keys. She had a sudden craving for a Delaney’s steak sandwich. If ever there was a time for comfort food, this had to be it.

They reached her Prius and got in without attracting notice. But as she pulled out of the municipal employees’ lot, she caught the startled gaze of Mildred Wickerson peering in the window at Duncan, and then at Alex, as though she couldn’t believe her eyes.