Chapter 28
Hayley couldn’t recall Bruce Linney ever begging for anything. He prided himself on being a cool, unflappable reporter. Emotional outbursts were not a part of his DNA.
And yet, here he was in the office of the Island Times, on his knees, his hands clasped in front of his face, pleading with Hayley.
Hayley couldn’t deny she was enjoying being in the power position.
Just a little bit.
And Bruce knew it.
But that didn’t stop him from this valiant effort to enlist Hayley’s help in following a lead for his story on the murder of Dr. Alvin Foley.
“Hayley, please, I need you. She likes you.”
“I’m sorry, Bruce. I want to go with you, but I’m way behind on my column, and Sal will kill me if I miss my deadline . . . again.”
“It’ll just take twenty minutes. I promise. I called Sherman’s Bookstore and she’s working there right now.”
He wanted to question Carla McFarland.
But Carla despised Bruce.
He’d made the fatal mistake of remarking that Carla’s double fudge brownies tasted like they came out of a box instead of made from scratch when he was judging a baking contest at the Blue Hill Fair three years ago.
Bruce had been dead to her ever since.
And there was no way she would actually talk to him if he showed up at the local bookshop where she worked part-time to ask her a few questions.
Which was why he needed Hayley.
He was able to confirm through conversations with a couple of Dr. Foley’s colleagues at the Jackson Lab that he had been casually dating a local woman.
And after some more digging, Bruce had finally come up with a name.
Carla McFarland.
His heart sank.
He knew how Carla felt about him.
She’d told him so to his face when they ran into each other at a dinner party shortly after the Blue Hill Fair incident. Carla had let loose with a litany of expletives, causing so much tension Bruce had to excuse himself and leave before dessert was served.
A halfhearted apology e-mail did little to repair the damage. So Bruce just wrote her off. When was he ever going to have use for Carla McFarland anyway?
Famous last words.
But as luck would have it, Carla and Hayley were friends. Their sons, Dustin and Spanky, had been close pals and hung out after school all the time. The two mothers had also cochaired a PTA committee and chaperoned a junior high school dance when their sons were in the eighth grade.
Of course Carla would be open to talking to Hayley.
Just not Bruce.
“I’ll buy you lunch afterward. Anywhere you want. You like the mac and cheese at the Side Street Café. We can go there.”
It was tempting. Bruce was pulling out all the stops.
Hayley was obsessed with the mac and cheese at the Side Street Café.
“I’ll even order us the spinach artichoke dip!”
It was sad that Hayley could be bribed with food. But she couldn’t resist the spinach artichoke dip.
She grabbed her coat and followed him out the door to his car. Her column was just about finished anyway, and Sal was out of the office covering a local court case. There really was no reason why she couldn’t slip out of the office for a little while.
She just loved seeing Bruce beg.
When Hayley and Bruce arrived at Sherman’s Bookstore on Main Street, they found Carla stocking the mystery section.
“Hi, Hayley!” Carla said in a cheery voice as Hayley rounded the corner.
Her smile quickly faded as Bruce fell in behind her. “Hello, Bruce,” Carla said, her voice suddenly grim.
Carla pulled three copies of the new Joanne Fluke mystery out of a box and added them to the shelf.
“I love that blouse you’re wearing,” Hayley said, buttering her up.
“You do? I got it on sale at JC Penny. I thought the colors might be too bold to wear at work, but the girls here love it. I’ve been getting compliments all morning.”
“It’s really nice,” Bruce said, jumping in with a smile that looked more like a dog baring its teeth at an intruder.
“Who asked you?” Carla said coldly.
“Don’t mind Bruce. He just gave me a ride here. Carla, I came here because I just found out you had been personally involved with Dr. Foley. . . .”
“Yes. He loved my double fudge brownies,” she said pointedly in Bruce’s direction.
“Well, I am so sorry for your loss,” Hayley said.
“I still don’t believe it. I mean, I’m used to men leaving me. Spanky’s deadbeat dad, that Irish bartender last summer . . . So when Alvin disappeared I just assumed he got a better job somewhere else and didn’t have the guts to dump me properly. But then, when his body turned up in the park . . . It’s just so awful.”
Carla moved to hug Hayley, and as she did she knocked the box of books she was stacking off the wooden stool it was resting on, and it crashed to the floor.
Bruce knelt down to pick up the books. “Here. Let me help.”
“I don’t want your help,” she said, her tongue dripping with venom.
“Let him, Carla. It’ll keep him busy while we talk,” Hayley said.
Carla nodded and they stepped over Bruce and walked to the back of the store to the children’s books section where they had more privacy.
“Why would anyone want to kill Alvin? He didn’t have a mean bone in his body. He was so gentle and sweet, and I thought he might finally be the one. . . .” Carla said, her voice trailing off, her eyes watering.
“Was he stressed out at work? Was he working on some kind of big project that might have put him in danger?”
“Not that I know of. Just the usual research. He didn’t talk about his job much. I think he liked to put it out of his mind when he wasn’t working at the lab.”
“Did you notice any strange behavior before he disappeared? Or see him with anyone you didn’t recognize?”
“No. The week he disappeared everything seemed so normal. We chatted on the phone a couple of times. We talked about driving to Kennebunk and booking a bed and breakfast for a romantic weekend in June. Then a couple of nights before he vanished, we went out to dinner. But it was just all so ordinary. He gave no indication anything was wrong.”
“When was the last time you saw him?”
“The day after we had dinner. I dropped off some of my homemade chicken soup.”
“Is that something you did regularly?”
“No. He wasn’t feeling well and my soup is very medicinal. It can cure anything!”
“What was wrong with him?”
“I’m not sure. He was convinced he got food poisoning at the restaurant the night before. Bad oysters, I think. He was so sick he was ready to call the Health Department and have the restaurant shut down, but I talked him out of it because we weren’t one hundred percent sure it was the restaurant and the owner is a friend.”
“Where did you dine that night?”
“The Blooming Rose.”
Felicity Flynn-Chan’s bistro.
Olivia Redmond had also dined there the night before she was murdered.
And in Hayley’s mind, that was too much of a coincidence.