When nothing is as it seems, then what? Take another look from another angle. Stand on your head if you have to.
Or go home.
An older maroon Subaru had parked in my driveway. I pulled in next to it. Ian Randall leaned against a front porch post, while Cassie Vincent sat on the steps, petting my little cat.
“Hey. What brings you guys out here?”
Ian straightened and Cassie stood, giving Sandburg a last quick ear tug.
“I—uh. Umm,” Ian said, blinking hard, then staring off into the trees above my head.
“Tell her,” Cassie said.
“I—we—I came to apologize. I’ll talk to the sheriff if you want.”
My brow furrowed. “About what?”
“Umm. Your window.” Finally, he ventured a glance at me. “At the shop.”
I scooped up Sandburg. “Are you saying you threw the Playhouse paver through the Merc’s front window?” He nodded.
Holy cow. “I think we all need to sit down. Iced tea? Fizzy water?” Cassie said yes and Ian said no. I took the cat inside and returned with three glasses and a bottle of Pellegrino. I took the red willow chair and gestured for them to sit. Cassie perched on the edge of the other chair, and Ian sank onto the top step. It’s an odd thing to realize that a whole generation sees you not only as an adult, but intimidating to boot.
“Why don’t you start at the beginning?”
Ian let out a ragged breath and told the story, with a little prompting from his girlfriend. He and Jeff had gotten the news of Claudette’s death Friday evening, in Seattle. They’d driven partway back that night, and rolled into Jewel Bay around noon Saturday. Although Detective Caldwell had not identified a suspect, Ian heard the talk and zeroed in on my mother. Sleepless and furious, he’d left the house in the wee hours Sunday morning, eventually finding himself in the village. Both Ian and Cassie were Children’s Theater veterans—they’d started dating while in a play together—and Ian had sat on the park bench behind the Playhouse, staring at the lake, seething. The same bench I’d sat on during Sunday’s festivities.
The longer he sat, the hotter he’d raged, until he grabbed a paver from the stack behind the theater and dashed down the street.
“Honestly, I don’t know how I got there. I don’t remember any of it. The next thing I knew, I was standing in front of the Merc, my hand empty, the window smashed.” He stared into space, seeing it all again. “Scared me to death. I took off.”
“That’s when I saw him,” Cassie said. “Running past the Inn.”
He’d gotten angrier when he saw me in Claudette’s garden on Monday evening, and when Fresca dropped in for a sympathy call. But the more he’d seen of us that week, Ian realized how genuinely we grieved his mother’s death. He confessed to Cassie, who talked him into coming clean.
“Thank you for telling me,” I said.
“Maybe we should have gone to your mother,” Cassie said. “But she’s kinda scary sometimes.”
“That she is,” I said wryly. I refilled my glass—they’d barely touched theirs. “Now, my turn. Ian, sorry as you are about the window, you wouldn’t be here if you thought my mother killed Claudette, or poisoned you.”
They exchanged nervous glances. Finally, Cassie spoke. “The whole mess is kind of our fault. Our parents wanted to break us up—”
“‘You’re too young to be so serious,’” Ian added, mimicking adult concern.
“And we figured if they got to know each other better, they’d stop bugging us. Turned out my dad and his mom hit it off a little too well.” Cassie’s gray eyes filled with regret. I remembered the newspaper photo of Dean and Claudette, cheek-to-cheek and starry-eyed, in the community theater musical.
“The best-laid plans,” I said. “But that doesn’t make you responsible for their affair, or anything else. They’re adults.”
“What if my dad killed her?” Cassie said, trembling. Worry lines creased her smooth face. Ian put his hand on her knee. He looked anxious, but wisely said nothing. “He’s just so gone off the last couple years. Pretending he’s Elvis, trashing his chiropractic practice. Acting like Jess and I don’t even exist. And then what he’s done to my mom.”
“Is his interest in Elvis new?” He’d mentioned collecting the furniture over the years.
“It was just for fun. He didn’t let it run his life.”
Who wouldn’t want to be king for an evening? Classic midlife crisis, in not-so-classic fashion.
“Does your dad have a temper?” I asked.
She swallowed hard. “He throws things. But he never hit us, or Mom.”
Still, when it came to evidence tying Dean to Claudette’s murder, they had none. Cassie had never seen her dad carry a knife. There had been no blood on his stretchy white jumpsuit—and Dean was fastidious about his costumes. All they had was strange behavior that had gotten stranger over the last few days.
“Do you suppose,” I said, “that your dad is acting weird out of guilt? Not for killing Claudette, but for putting her in the situation that caused her death? Like you feel guilty, because you introduced them?” Like I did, because I’d invited her to the Festa.
“You mean, if he’d been a better fake, she would never have come back to Jewel Bay and gotten killed?” Ian said.
“Sounds kinda goofy, but remember he’s not thinking straight.” Criminy. Listen to me defending Dean Vincent. “Combine that with guilt over hurting your mother and you girls, and grief over Claudette’s death, and anybody’s bound to act a little crazy.”
Not to mention having made himself look like a bit of an ass—running off to Vegas to steal the show and getting sent home instead.
“It’s worse than that.” Cassie’s voice wobbled. “What if my mom poisoned Ian?”
I gaped in astonishment. Linda’s candy tasted awful, but not deadly. If the killer used a toxic plant from Claudette’s garden, he—or she—was likely to be knowledgeable about herbs and plants. Someone without knowledge might pick marigolds, thinking if they stink, they must be poison—not only not true, but some varieties are actually tasty, especially in salads. Focus, Erin.
By all accounts, Linda wasn’t a gardener or an herbalist, and certainly not much of a cook. I pictured her house and yard: the barest minimum of developer landscaping and nothing more. Certainly no perennials. “No love lost between me and your mother, but do you honestly think she could do that? To Ian?”
“I don’t know anymore. It’s all so screwed up.” Her fists clenched and unclenched. “I saw Fresca bring her basket. Ian and his dad don’t like red peppers, so I took the jar of roasted pepper sauce home. My mom saw it and decided to make a basket of her own.”
My phone buzzed with a text and I stole a look. Rick Bergstrom saying, Check your e-mail for the scoop on Jay. Later.
“Cassie, did your mother put a jar of artichoke pesto in her basket?”
Her face darkened and scrunched like a constipated baby’s. “I think so. She has jars and jars of Fresca’s stuff. She loves it. And she knows Ian loves the artichoke blend—he’s always eating it at our house. What if—what if first my dad killed Claudette, then he poisoned the pesto to kill my mom, but she gave it away instead and it nearly killed Ian?”
Ian reached up for her hand. “But it didn’t. I’m fine.”
“It could have, if you’d eaten more. It could have been anybody—my mom, or my sister, or me. Your dad, your aunt.”
But how could we prove that the poisoned jar had come from Linda’s basket, not my mother’s? No doubt Kim would send it for fingerprinting, which might help identify who’d touched the jar, though it wouldn’t eliminate Fresca, who still filled and labeled every jar by hand.
My head reeled. Cassie’s fears put a whole new spin on things. I believed Dean to be a first-class conniving heel, but all this? Still, Dean did have a key to Linda’s house. “Let’s sort this out.” I handed Cassie her no-longer-fizzy water and made her take a sip. “You told your mom about my mom’s basket, and she decided to send one of her own. How did she act?”
“Happy. She likes making things. She’s not that great at it, though. Her basket looked punk next to Fresca’s.”
“Other than thinking you and Ian are too young, how does she feel about him?”
Both kids colored. “She likes him. Or did. It all got weird after Dad and Claudette ran off. But she never blamed Ian.”
I asked her to tell me more about Linda’s reaction to the affair. Linda, it seemed, had been of several minds herself. Self-righteously angry, alternating her fury between her man and the woman who stole him. Mortified, for being played a fool—which made her angrier. And Cassie admitted, she even seemed relieved at times. “They fought a lot. It was more peaceful when he was gone.” She gave me a crooked grin. “But the new car’s hot.” Would they get back together now? Cassie couldn’t guess, but both she and her sister looked forward to leaving home. Which made them feel guilty.
More than enough guilt to go around.
“What now?” Ian said, his voice betraying his anxiety. This no doubt seemed like the worst week of his life. With any luck, it would be.
“You’re worried, but you have to trust that everything will be okay. The truth will come out, and you’ll survive it.” They looked unconvinced, and I hardly blamed them. “I’m really glad you talked to me. Ian, promise you’ll call Deputy Caldwell in the morning. If I don’t hear from her by noon, I’ll call and report you myself.”
They walked to Cassie’s car hand in hand. I wondered whether their relationship would survive this.
I watched them drive off, then went inside. When I touched the antique door handle, I remembered the feeling that someone had been in the cabin earlier in the week. Had I been overtired, imagining things?
No matter. I clicked the door firmly shut. All would be well.