Chapter 15
Thyme let out a squeal as soon as I walked through the door.
“What’s wrong?” I asked her.
“Nothing.” She avoided my gaze. “How did it go?”
“It went fine,” I said. “Only I think the butler and Clara are looking a lot less like suspects now. The beauty therapist said that Clara and Nick pretty much had an open marriage—that each knew what the other one was doing as far as the affairs went, and they didn’t mind. However, Harrison seems more a suspect. I found out that he didn’t want the products to be sold in China because of animal testing, and Nick was trying to push it through. With Nick out of the way, Harrison gets his wish. Anyway, I’ll just go and have a look at myself in the bathroom mirror.”
Thyme put her hand on my arm to restrain me. “I’m desperate for a bathroom break. Let me go first, won’t you?”
Thyme wasn’t long at all. I hurried to look at myself in the little mirror, and saw that the light globe was missing. That was funny; it had been there before I’d left. I went back out into the showroom. “Thyme, what happened to the light globe in the bathroom?”
She shot a guilty look at the trash. “It blew while you were away. I haven’t had a chance to put a new one in. Anyway, I have to tell you what Dawson said.”
“What?” I exclaimed. “Dawson came in while I was at the beauty therapist’s?”
Thyme smiled broadly. “Yes, he asked me out to dinner.”
I was delighted. I patted her on the shoulder. “Well done! That’s fantastic.”
Thyme shook her head. “No, I couldn’t accept, what with the happiness spell and everything. It just wouldn’t be right.” She hesitated for a moment, before pushing on. “Anyway, he told me something very interesting. Chris Blackwell is looking like a suspect now.”
I was intrigued. “Go on.”
“Dawson told me that Chris Blackwell is Clara’s son from her first marriage. His father died in a light plane wreck.”
I nodded, waiting for her to say something of importance.
“He’s a troubled youth. I mean, that’s obvious. And Dawson said that Chris had an argument with Nick and tried to stab him, but the family covered it up. Tinsdell told him, and asked him not to tell anyone. Dawson told me, and asked me not to tell anyone.”
I laughed. “And now you’re telling me, and asking me not to tell anyone.”
Thyme laughed, too. “Yes, and that’s not all. Dawson said that Chris has been in a lot of trouble with the police. He’s been up on charges such as drug possession, vandalism, resisting arrest, and stuff like that. Dawson said he got off on community service. We need to question him to see if he was the one who killed Nick.”
“Question him?” I said in disbelief. “How are we going to question him? It’s not as if we’re police officers, and he’s a rather obnoxious person.”
Thyme smirked, and I knew I was in for trouble. “Chris doesn’t know that we’re not police officers,” she said.
I narrowed my eyes. I had a bad feeling where this was headed. “What do you mean?” I said carefully.
“He saw us go to his mother’s house and question her. For all he knows, we’re detectives. He keeps to himself. I’ve never seen him come inside the store, have you?”
“He doesn’t strike me as someone who eats cupcakes.”
Thyme’s smirk grew wider. “No, he looks like someone who chews on dried leather. Anyway, all we have to do is flash fake police badges, and flash them at him quickly.”
“Fake police badges?” I squeaked. “Isn’t that a federal offense? We can’t impersonate police officers—we could be arrested, Thyme!”
Thyme’s response was to pull police badges from under the counter.
“Where did you get those?” I asked her.
“The dollar shop. I left Camino minding the store, and ducked out for them.”
I looked at Camino, who responded with a cheery wave.
“Don’t worry, Amelia,” Thyme continued. “The police are off in La La Happy Land. They won’t be arresting us for impersonating them. Camino, can you mind the store while Amelia and I go out to question Chris Blackwell? We need to find out if he had an alibi.”
Camino happily agreed that she would.
“This is a bad idea, Thyme,” I said as I followed her outside and headed for the library, where Thyme had informed me that Chris was doing community service for his many offenses.
Chris was outside the library, scrubbing graffiti off the wall. He turned to look at us, a cigarette hanging loosely from the corner of his mouth. “Follow my lead,” Thyme said.
“Sure. You won’t get any argument from me,” I said, looking around nervously to see if any police officers were in the vicinity.
“Get your fake badge out ready and do just as I do,” Thyme instructed me. She walked over to him. “Chris Blackwell?” she said abruptly. “I’m Detective Nettles and this is Detective Hughes.” She briefly waved her badge in front of his face, and I did, too. “We need to know your alibi for Nick Smith’s murder.”
Chris scowled. He pulled the cigarette out of his mouth and ground it on the pavement. He smelled of alcohol and stale cigarette smoke. I took a step backward. “You’ve already asked me this,” he said roughly.
“We’re the police, we ask things more than once,” Thyme said without missing a beat.
“I was at a friend’s house overnight,” he drawled.
“Name?” Thyme flipped open her notepad. I hoped Chris didn’t notice the price sticker with the name of the dollar shop on it.
“I’ve already told you,” he complained. “How many times do I have to tell you?”
“As many times as we ask,” Thyme countered.
He snorted rudely. “I was working late here at the library, sorting books, then I went out drinking with friends at the pub. Then we went to Tamworth for the night, drinking.”
Thyme shot me a quick look. If this was indeed the case, then we would have to rule out Chris as a suspect.
“If you can tell us the name of the pub in Tamworth and the name of the friends you were with, that will eliminate you as a suspect.”
His expression did not change. “Will you stop bothering me then?”
Thyme nodded. “We will pass this information along to our superiors. I can’t guarantee what they’ll do, but I’d say you’ll have no more problems with the police. Not over Nick’s murder, at any rate,” she added.
Chris proceeded to tell us the people he was with, the pubs he had visited in Tamworth, and the friends with whom he had stayed overnight. Thyme had to flip over several pages to keep up with him.
She shut her notebook with a flourish. “Thanks for your cooperation. I doubt we’ll need to speak again, not if your story checks out.”
We hurried back to the store before anyone saw us. “What if he tells the cops that two women detectives questioned him?” I asked Thyme.
She did not appear the least concerned. “I doubt he does any more speaking than is absolutely necessary. Besides, the police are hardly likely to drag us in and put us in a line up.”
“Okay, what do we do now?” I asked her. “Do you want to call his friends, and I’ll call all the pubs he said was at?”
Thyme said that was a good idea.
When we reached the store, Camino had several customers, so we apologized and took over selling the cupcakes while Camino went back to her barista stand.
In between customers, Thyme and I were busy on our phones. It turned out that Chris had, in fact, being at pubs the entire Saturday night before Nick’s murder. People I spoke to at the pubs remembered him, because he’d been thrown out several times. One of the pubs had even called the police because he had made a scene. When I cross checked with Thyme, she said that he had spent the night at a friend’s place in Tamworth.
“Apparently he was so drunk that he couldn’t move, and he spent the whole night throwing up,” Thyme said thoughtfully.
“Yes, that’s pretty much what I found out,” I said. “It doesn’t sound like he would’ve been feeling well enough to slip back and poison his stepfather’s antacid.”
Thyme nodded. “And Nick would have taken the antacid before his Saturday evening meal, so the poison had to be put in after that time, and before lunch the next day.”
“Unless Chris was pretending,” I said.
“What do you mean?”
I tapped my chin. “How about this for a scenario? Chris wanted to set up an iron-clad alibi. He went to several pubs in Tamworth and made sure he was kicked out of each one of them, and even caused a disruption to make sure the police were called, so it would be on record. And as this was usual behavior for him, no one would be surprised. He then went to his friend’s in Tamworth, and pretended to be sick. His friends weren’t to know if he sneaked out in the night and went back to poison the bottle of antacid.”
Thyme shook her head. “I think you’re stretching it too far, Amelia,” she said. “I don’t think he’s all that clever, And even if he was, that seems too much of a stretch. I think Harrison is the most likely suspect, at this point.”