It was not the meow that woke Danielle. It was having to go to the bathroom. Reluctantly, she opened her eyes and looked up at her bedroom’s dark ceiling. Next to her, Walt continued to sleep. She heard his steady breathing. Moving slowly so as not to wake her husband, Danielle slipped out of bed. She glanced at the window facing Beach Drive and spied Max hidden behind the curtain as he sat on the windowsill, looking out through the glass pane, with only his black tail visible; it swished back and forth. He let out another meow.
Instead of going to the bathroom, Danielle hurried toward the window. If Max continued meowing, he was sure to wake Walt. Once at the window, Danielle pushed the curtain to one side, intending to move the cat. Yet, before she picked him up, her glance moved to the glass pane and to what had captured Max’s attention.
“Holy crap!” Danielle blurted, now pressing against the window and looking out into the early morning. Max let out another loud meow.
“What is going on over there?” a sleepy Walt grumbled from the bed.
“Someone just flew by the house!”
“What?” Walt sat all the way up in bed and rubbed his eyes. He looked across the room and saw Danielle at the window, a hint of morning sunshine streaming into the bedroom.
“I’m serious. Someone just flew by the window, but whoever it is, they’re gone now.” Danielle turned to Walt. “I wonder if that was Marie.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’ve got to pee,” Danielle blurted before dashing to the bathroom, leaving Max behind.
When Danielle returned from the bathroom, she found Walt sitting on the side of the bed with Max.
“I’m sorry I woke you,” Danielle said.
“You do understand, I don’t have to know what you’re doing when you go to the bathroom.”
Danielle giggled. “Sorry. Too much information?”
“By the way, Max verified your story. But it wasn’t Marie.”
Danielle took a seat on the side of the bed with Walt and Max. “What do you mean?”
“When you were in the bathroom—doing whatever you were doing—Max told me someone flew by the window. Whoever it was was flying around the neighborhood. When he or she flew by the window, Max glimpsed their face, and he’s fairly certain it wasn’t Marie or Eva.”
“If it wasn’t Marie or Eva, what did I see?” Danielle asked.
“My guess, another spirit. I might suggest you were dreaming while sleepwalking, but since Max saw it too…” Walt gave a shrug.
Danielle stood up and walked to the window. Once again, she pulled the curtain to the side and looked out. Early morning sunlight gradually replaced the darkness. “She’s up early. I wonder if she saw it, too.”
Walt got off the bed and walked to Danielle. “Who?”
Still standing at the window, the drapes pushed to one side, Danielle nodded toward Beach Drive. “Heather. It looks like she’s walking to Chris’s house. If it weren’t so early, I’d say she’s going to hitch a ride to work with him; her car is still in the shop.”
Heather used her key to let herself into Chris’s house. She didn’t want to wake him. The moment she opened the door, Hunny greeted her, tail wagging.
“Hey, girl,” Heather said as she shut the door behind her and gave the dog a pat.
“You want some coffee?” Chris called out from the kitchen. “I also have tea.”
Heather headed toward the voice, Hunny by her side. When she walked into the kitchen, she found Chris standing by the sink, filling the coffeepot with water. Barefoot, he wore only boxers.
“Aren’t you cold?” Heather asked.
“Not really.” Chris poured the water from the coffee pot into the coffeemaker. He looked at Heather and asked, “Did you want some coffee, tea?”
“Thanks, but no. Maybe after I get back from my run. I don’t like to drink coffee or tea before I go running. So how was the concert? I figured you’d still be sleeping.”
Turning to face Heather, Chris leaned back against the counter as he waited for the coffee to brew. “I left early.”
“Why? Did something happen?”
Chris shrugged. “It’s just that I should know better.”
Heather frowned. “What do you mean? What happened?”
“I’ve become friends with a bartender at one of the places I go to when I’m in Portland. He introduced me to the woman I asked to the concert. When I first met her, I thought she was gorgeous—model movie-star looks.”
Heather grinned. “Is she as pretty as you?”
Chris rolled his eyes and let out a sigh. “Stop objectifying me. But yeah, she’s pretty hot. At first glance, anyway.”
Heather frowned. “What do you mean?”
“It’s just never a good idea asking someone out—someone you’ll have to spend a few hours with—if you don’t know anything about them aside from how they look.”
“People do that all the time on blind dates.”
“Yeah, I suppose. But the next time, I’ll take them to coffee so it’s easier to cut it short.”
“Now you have me curious. What was wrong with her?”
“Hmm, let’s see, the first red flag, there were a couple of plus-size ladies enjoying the concert. Actually, they seemed like they were having a lot of fun. My date proceeded to make snarky comments about them, how they obviously couldn’t find real dates because of their size. I was grateful they were far enough away that they couldn’t hear what she was saying.”
“Sounds lovely,” Heather said dryly.
“And then there were remarks about a biracial couple, and how the white guy was betraying his race by dating that—well—I won’t say what she called her.”
“Oh, my god! What a bitch! What did you do?”
“I told her I was feeling sick, and that I had to go. And that I hoped she could find her way home.”
“You left her there? Good for you! What did she say?”
Chris smiled. “She asked what was wrong with me. I said, ‘You.’ And then I turned and left.”
“I’m proud of you.”
Chris shrugged. “Life is too short to spend with ugly people.”
Heather giggled.
“So how was your evening at Pearl Cove last night?”
Heather proceeded to tell Chris all that had happened the night before. After she finished the telling, she glanced at the kitchen clock and said, “I should probably get going if I want to get a run in before work. Thanks for letting me take Hunny with me.”
“No problem. Hunny will enjoy it. Did Brian go home already?”
“He was just getting up when I left and said something about interviewing Becca Hammond again.”
After leaving Heather’s on Monday morning, Brian drove straight to Becca Hammond’s house. He hoped to catch her before she left for work, because he would rather not talk to her at the grocery store.
Brian understood it was probably a long shot, but he had to ask Becca. Ever since finding the bloody letter opener, he kept thinking about the other letter opener, the one that had caused the rift in Becca and Betty’s friendship. Could it possibly be the same one? The one they found yesterday looked like an antique, and Becca’s was an antique. He had mentioned something to the chief and Joe about it the night before, and while both said it wouldn’t hurt to ask, they didn’t expect it to be the same letter opener.
“Officer Henderson,” Becca greeted him when she opened the door for Brian.
“I’m sorry to stop by so early, but I was hoping I could catch you before you go to work.”
“Well, if you wanted to talk to my husband, I’m afraid he already left for work. As for me, I don’t work today.”
“You are the one I need to talk to,” Brian said.
Becca opened the door wider. “Come on in. Would you like a cup of coffee?”
Five minutes later, Becca and Brian sat at her kitchen table, each with a cup of coffee. Brian handed Becca his cellphone to show her a picture he had on it. “By any chance, is this the letter opener you had stolen?”
Setting her coffee cup on the table, Becca reached over and took Brian’s cellphone from his hand. She looked at the image on its display. “Oh, my God! You found it!” Becca looked up at Brian and grinned. “I can’t believe you found it. Who had it?”
Brian let out a heavy sigh and took the phone back from Becca. “So it really is yours?”
“It certainly looks like it. Where is it?”
“Becca, it appears your letter opener was the murder weapon. Someone used it to kill Betty.”
Becca stared dumbly at Brian. “No. That’s not true. That doesn’t make any sense.”
“Yesterday, a resident of Beach Drive found it in their trash bin. It was wrapped in a bloody rag, and the letter opener had traces of dry blood on it. We tested it. The blood matches Betty’s. And according to the coroner, it appears to be the weapon used to kill her.”
Becca shook her head. “I don’t want it back. Do whatever you want with it. I don’t want it.”
“We couldn’t give it back to you right now, anyway. It’s evidence in a murder investigation. But I need to find out who had access to that letter opener before it disappeared.”
Becca considered the question for a moment and then shrugged. “I suppose anyone who was at the library that day. But I have no idea who that would be. I really don’t know. You could ask Josephine what library staff was on duty. But since she was on vacation when it was taken, I doubt she’d be much help figuring out who else was at the library during that time. You could ask Kenny. He was there. I saw him and Betty exchanging heated words about the display.”
“Kenny?” Brian frowned.
“Yeah, he was the janitor at the library. But he quit right after the letter opener fiasco.”
When Brian arrived at the police station on Monday morning, he found the chief and Joe standing at the front desk.
Joe greeted Brian with, “You will not believe this.”
Brian returned with, “You will not believe this. The letter opener we found yesterday was the same letter opener taken from the library. It belonged to Becca Hammond.”
Joe frowned. “You’re kidding me?”
“I’m just trying to figure out how Olivia Davis got her hands on the stolen letter opener before she used it to kill Betty,” Brian said.
“She didn’t kill Betty,” the chief said.
“Then why does she keep lying about when she got into town? Why is she saying she didn’t see Betty right before she was murdered? We just need to figure out how that letter opener fits into all this,” Brian said.
“Brian, you are not listening. Olivia couldn’t have killed her,” Joe said.
Brian frowned at Joe.
“We got the surveillance videos this morning. Olivia got on that plane, just as she told us. I don’t know who Heather saw Friday morning, but it was not Olivia Davis. She was telling the truth,” the chief explained.