| |
I slept through my alarm Tuesday morning. I’d been plagued by disturbing nightmares involving both Barry and Viki’s deaths and had slept fitfully. A tiny coughing sound woke me at half-past seven. The moment I opened my eyes and saw a neat little puddle of cat vomit on my best bedspread, I knew it had been a mistake to wake up. Beryl was clearly punishing me for bringing Lily into the house.
I groaned and sat up, looking around the room for the culprit. He was, of course, nowhere to be seen. “Beryl, you naughty cat!” I called out as I slid from beneath cool cotton sheets. “I'm gonna skin you and use your guts for violin strings!” I slid my feet into slippers and shuffled across the hardwood floor to the windows. There was a sunbeam peeking through them, and a quick glance outside showed it was another beautiful summer morning, one that drew the flatlanders to the mountains to play. It was a shame that such a dark pall hung over my head.
I slipped into a fuzzy pink bathrobe I’d draped over a slipper chair across from my bed and peered inside the bathroom. There, curled up in the bottom of the cast iron, clawfoot tub, was Beryl. He peered up at me with the most innocent expression in his bluest-blue eyes. I frowned at him.
“You know what you did,” I said.
He blinked, and the innocence in his feline gaze changed to smugness.
“And you know I still love you. But you know what? You’ve got a new sister now, and you’re just gonna have to get used to her.” I sighed and got out a washrag before going back to my bedroom and cleaning up the vomit. I stripped my bed afterward. It was a good thing I had planned to do laundry today.
I went back to the bathroom and washed my face before stumbling downstairs and getting the day’s edition of The Denver Post off the front porch. Although I was a loyal reader of Saxon Lake’s local paper, it was only a once-a-week edition, and I was forced to get my daily news from somewhere else. I didn’t like any of the newscasters on the local TV stations, and the national news programs were only on at night. I supposed I could be like Bekah, who got her news from Facebook and Twitter, but I was just too old-fashioned and preferred my news in paper form. I liked the smudges of ink newsprint left behind on my fingers.
I went into the guest bathroom and found Lily curled up on her blanket. She stood up and stretched and made her funny little trilling sound as she wound herself between my ankles. “Let’s see how you get along with Beryl,” I said and stepped out into the hallway. Beryl was sitting in the doorway of my bedroom, his tail curled around his feet. He was watching Lily intently as she crept out of the bathroom, sides moving like a bellows as she approached him. He closed his eyes and looked away. She closed her eyes and looked away. And just like that, there was peace once more in my house.
I picked up Lily’s bowls and headed down to the kitchen to make coffee. Lily followed hot on my heels and waited while I filled her bowls. She gobbled up her food immediately and then sat off to the side, washing her face and head. Moments later, Beryl deigned to join us, and I filled his bowls as well. The phone rang while I was enjoying the first cup of coffee of the day. “Hello?” I answered, my mind a thousand miles away, mentally running through the list of patients I would see today, what work there was to do in the drying shed here at home and the stillroom at the shop, and the never-ending list of farm chores that I still had to conquer. My thoughts skittered away from Viki and Barry’s deaths, refusing to think of them.
“Bryony. How are you, dear?” It was Adele Vincent.
I groaned inwardly. Adele was the very last person I wanted to talk to right now. “Oh, hello, Adele,” I said, trying to force the annoyance out of my voice, “I'm pretty upset. I'm sure you’ve heard what happened last night.”
“Yes, I did. And it's just awful. That poor Viki Childress. Do you know what happened to her?”
“No, I sure don't. Doc Hutchins said there would be an autopsy. It's just tragic. She was such a nice girl. So helpful in the shop. Mom’s going to be hard-pressed to replace her.”
Adele made a slightly disgusted sound, and I grinned. Adele was, no doubt, fishing for something nasty to say about Viki. I would have to be a fool to just hand her something that would spread like wildfire throughout the village. “Do you know her people?” Adele asked. “Is it true she’s an orphan and grew up in a Catholic church?”
“Her mother’s listed on her employment application as her emergency contact. She lives in Fort Collins. I assume Sheriff Jensen will have contacted her by now.” There was a sudden knock at my door, and I grinned at the welcome interruption. “Gosh, Adele,” I said, sending up a silent prayer of thanks for my visitor, whoever it was. “I sure would love to sit and chat with you, but someone’s at the front door. I’ll talk with you soon. Take care. Bye-bye,” I said, hanging up before Adele could get a word in.
I left Beryl sitting on the floor, staring mournfully into his full kibble bowl, no doubt wishing it would magically transform into salmon. Lily followed me as I went to answer the door. I let out a small but pleased gasp of surprise when I spotted Dean in his sheriff’s uniform standing on my porch with a drink carrier of to-go cups and a white bag with Sunny Side Up Cafe’s smiling sun logo on it. “Hi,” I said brightly. “What brings you by?”
“Mornin’.” He frowned when he saw me still in my pajamas, but held out the coffee and bag to me anyway. “I brought breakfast. I thought I’d catch you up on the investigation.” He glanced down at my feet. “Who’s that?”
“Barry’s kitten, Lily. I didn’t want her there all alone until his family figures out what to do about his things, so I brought her home with me.” I ushered him inside, and he followed me through the house to the sunny breakfast nook just off the kitchen. The nook’s huge windows overlooked my small but tidy backyard, and through the rose-covered arbor at the rear, you could see into the rest of the farm’s acreage. The nook was my favorite place in the house. Hanging from a large aspen tree just outside the windows, there was a bird feeder covered with juncos, chickadees, finches, sparrows. Sometimes even Stellar’s jays and camp robbers would stop by. My perennial borders were in full bloom, and their lively colors made a nice foil to the dark, glossy green lawn and the screen of boxwood hedges that lined the yard. Even in the winter, the spot had a beautiful view.
I held my hand out to the best seat in the nook. “Have a seat. What’s in the bag? Do we need forks and plates?”
Dean sat down and opened the bag. “Just napkins.” He pulled out two enormous fruit danishes and put them down on the napkins I handed him before I sat down across from him.
“Those look lovely,” I said as I accepted a cup of coffee and a danish that looked like it was either raspberry or blackberry. “Any news from Doc about Barry or Viki’s cause of death?”
Dean nodded as he took a bite of his danish. After chewing thoroughly and swallowing, he dug a notebook out of his shirt pocket and said, “Toxicology report’s back from CBI. Barry had something called coniine and conhydrine in his system. Someone slipped it into his lemonade.”
The hair on the back of my neck stood straight up. “Coniine and conhydrine? Are you sure?” I shuddered.
Dean showed me his notebook where he’d written down the words. “That’s what the CBI tech told me. Why? Do they mean something to you?”
I nodded. “They’re two of the poisonous compounds in hemlock.”
“Hemlock? The stuff that Socrates drank to kill himself with?”
“Yes. The very one.”
Dean frowned and slid the notebook back into his pocket. “Do you sell it?”
“Yes. It’s useful in relieving bad coughs and helps with epilepsy.” I frowned. “But I haven’t given anyone a prescription for it in years.”
“You still have it in your shop?”
“Yes, but it’s under lock and key in my office. Only Bekah and I have access to the cabinet. I keep the keys on my ring, which I keep in my purse while I’m in the shop. I lock it up in my desk.”
“Do you still have records of whomever you’ve given it to in the past?”
“I do. Upstairs. Be right back.” I hurried upstairs to my home office and rummaged through my files before finding a prescription that was three years old and had only been filled once. I rushed into my bedroom to dress then. I slipped on a pair of faded blue jeans, a red-and-white striped t-shirt, and ran a comb through my hair before returning to the kitchen.
If Dean noticed the quick wardrobe change, he didn’t mention it. I sat down again and handed him the prescription. He looked it over and frowned. “This is three years old. This family doesn’t even live in the village anymore.”
“Yeah, like I said, I haven’t prescribed it in years.” I was silent as I thought about hemlock for a moment. “It grows wild around here, though. It’s in the carrot family. In fact, it looks just like wild carrot. There have been cases of people who accidentally eat it, thinking it’s just a carrot. Maybe... Maybe the chef at the Raven and Fox harvested some and added it to their food at the bake sale?”
“It’s worth looking into.” Dean held up the slip of paper. “Mind if I make a copy of this?”
“I’ll do it. I have a copier upstairs.” I returned to my office, and as I waited for the printer-fax-copier to warm up, I took a moment to wonder if I was a suspect in Barry’s murder. I had an ironclad alibi for Viki’s murder if Doc Hutchins’ timeline was right. Nine hours before I discovered her body, I’d been at the sheriff’s station or driving to the shop. I also had an alibi for Barry’s death.
The copier finished, and I returned to the nook and handed the copy to Dean before sitting down once more. “Do you have any leads in Viki’s murder? Fingerprints maybe? Or other evidence?” I wasn’t certain how much information he’d share with me considering I was a civilian, but I was curious and wanted to help somehow.
He stared at me for a long moment, obviously debating the wisdom in telling me anything. Finally, he nodded and said, “We didn’t recover any prints other than Viki’s on the knife, so the killer probably wore gloves. He—or she, maybe—also didn’t bring the knife. It matched a set on Viki’s kitchen counter.”
“So her murder was probably a crime of passion, then? When I spoke with Doc last night, he said there weren’t any hesitation wounds and only one visible mark.”
My casual use of forensic terminology gave Dean pause. He studied me over the table, long fingers wrapped around his to-go cup of coffee as he looked at me. One corner of his mouth curled in a half-smile, and he nodded a bit. “You watch too much CSI.” The smiled bloomed fully for a second before disappearing. “Crime of passion, sure. Or he was familiar enough with Viki and her house to know there were plenty of murder weapons available there and it wasn’t necessary to bring one.” Dean shrugged a little and finished his coffee before continuing. “After a search of Viki’s bedroom and the desk in her kitchen, we found evidence that she’s the blackmailer.”
“What?” I was stunned. “Viki’s the blackmailer?”
“Yeah. We found a payment notebook as well as file folders on a bunch of people around town. She’s got photos, handwritten notes, other people’s credit card receipts. The works. It’s a very organized scheme.”
“I can’t believe it! Who else was she blackmailing? I mean, besides Barry.”
“Bryony, you know I can’t tell you everyone we found in her files.” He took another sip of his coffee and shrugged. “I’m sorry, but I just can’t.”
“Can I guess?” Suddenly, the specter of having good gossip to pass on raised its blackened head, and I found myself craving information before my conscience chirped and reminded me that a woman had died. Now was not the time to one-up Adele Vincent.
“Bryony,” Dean said, a sandy brow arched.
I scowled at him. “Fine. Don’t tell me. But remember how I always kept your secrets in high school? I never, ever told a single soul how you cheated on Mr. Wilhelm’s history tests, or that you snuck a hip flask filled with tequila into the winter formal during our senior year, or that you were the one who gave Principal Sherman the names of the people who put all those goldfish into the swimming pool for senior prank, or...”
“Okay, okay. I get it. You’re trustworthy.” He sighed heavily and scrubbed a hand down his face. “Fine. This does not leave this room.” I used my forefinger to make an X over my heart. He gave me a level look, but a smile lurked around the corners of his mouth. He said, “Most, if not all, of the pieces in McMurray’s Fine Antiques are cheap Chinese knock-offs. Viki had a bill of lading from Beijing for that tea table and the four matching chairs Ed has in the front window of the shop.”
“What? The Louis the Sun King pieces he just got in?” Dean nodded, the smile surfacing at last. “But he’s so proud of his provenances.”
Dean smirked. “Fake. Just like the rest of the stuff in his shop.”
“Ooh,” I said, tapping my finger against my chin. I looked at Dean. “Are you going to charge him with fraud or something?” I really wanted to report Ed McMurray’s indiscretions to Mom and most especially to Adele, who was Ed’s biggest competition in town.
Dean shrugged. “I’ll forward it on to someone. I’m not sure my deputies or I are the right people to investigate this sort of thing.” He paused and then leaned forward. “Also, Tiffany Bright wasn’t hired for her clerical skills,” Dean said. Tiffany Bright was a blonde, twenty-something, junior real estate agent, working for Paul Holmes. Paul was married to Alicia, who had won third place in the best cake competition at the SummerFest.
“Paul’s having an affair?” I was astounded. Alicia was so beautiful and a great mother. I didn’t understand how Paul could be cheating on her.
Dean nodded.
“With Tiffany?”
Dean nodded again.
“Ew,” I said, wrinkling my nose in disgust. “How cliché. Viki was blackmailing him?”
“And Tiffany, too. Viki was making close to $5,000 a month, if her records are correct.”
“Wow,” I said in a low voice. “That much?”
“Yes. We’ll be getting subpoenas for her bank records this week. We’ll know exactly how much she’s taken by then.”
I frowned in thought. “I still don’t understand why Viki reacted the way she did when Barry died. She seemed truly surprised by it. More than she should have been if it was a random accident. Maybe she had a partner and the partner killed Barry?”
“I suppose that makes sense. But who?”
“One of her friends?” I guessed. “Her boyfriend maybe?”
“Gordon Oakes, right? He’s her boyfriend?”
“Yeah,” I answered, nodding. Then I sat up straight as a memory hit me. “I saw them together on Saturday. When Barry was killed. They were standing right next to him.”
“I’ll have McGill call him in for questioning. Know any of her other friends?”
“Bekah Gilmore, for certain. They often met up for lunch during work hours, and Bekah mentioned hanging out on their off days, too. But that’s all I know. Mom might know more. They might have come into the shop while Viki was working.”
“I’ll give Glynis a call soon then. And I’ll need to talk with Bekah, too.”
“Sounds like a plan.” I glanced at the digital clock on the stove and gasped. “It’s so much later than I thought it was! I’ve got to get to work.”
Dean stood and helped clean up the trash from breakfast. I walked him to the front door. “Tonight’s the big barbecue at Civic Center Park,” I said as we crossed through the living room. “I’ll be there helping Jennifer. Shoomaker’s is catering dinner tonight.”
Dean paused in front of the door. “Oh? Well... Maybe you’d like to have dinner with me tonight? If you get a break, that is.”
“I’d love to. I’ll make Jennifer give me a break at 8:30. Does that sound okay?”
“Sounds perfect. I’ll see you tonight.” He turned and opened the door. “Bye, Bryony.”
“Bye, Dean.” I almost followed him outside but remembered at the last moment that I was late for work. I watched as he drove down my dirt road and disappeared down the hill. I closed the door and hurried through the house to find my cell phone. I needed to call Jennifer and Mom to tell them that I had a date with the sheriff tonight.
Once I’d spoken to both Jennifer and Mom, I put on shoes, grabbed my purse and a light jacket, plus some white sage leaves that had finished drying and a pint of fresh goat’s milk. I had it in mind to work on some citrus-sage-scented hand cream in between seeing patients and helping Bekah out in the shop.