Chapter Seventeen

"You've got some balls, Detective, accusing my sister," shouted Sophie, waving the warrant at Detective Logan.

"I'm not accusing Ms. McKellar of anything," Detective Logan replied. He ran a hand over his dark red hair and sighed. "If you could just let me do my job..."

"If only you would do your job," muttered Sophie.

"He is," I said, placing a hand on her sleeve. I hated to see her get so fired up over the warrant, not to mention being a little worried the anxiety might cause her to give birth on my doorstep.

"What's this about, Detective?" asked Jack. "I thought Ally was cleared."

"We got an anonymous tip," started one of the uniformed officers who came to join us on the sidewalk.

"Enough, Nixon," snapped Detective Logan. "What have I said about being discreet?"

"Like I said, I have nothing to hide. You can all go in," I said. "But please don't mess my place up too much."

"Are you expecting us to stand outside in the freezing cold while you finish whatever you're doing?" asked Mark. "It's February, it's icy cold, it's Valentine's Day and my wife is heavily pregnant."

"I prefer the term delightfully pregnant," muttered Sophie.

Detective Logan contemplated that before he nodded. "You can all go inside but you must stay put where I tell you, and you can't obstruct our investigation in anyway," he said, looking at each of us for the nod we gave, Sophie begrudgingly so. Detective Logan led the way inside, allowing me to turn on the lights before we all trudged upstairs. He directed us into the small living room, waiting until we found places to sit. Sophie and I took the couch, Mark took my desk chair and Jack took the armchair. "Where were you all this evening?" he asked.

"My husband and I were having our last ever Valentine's night before we start having to pay double-time for a sitter," said Sophie, a cross look fixed on her face.

"We ate dinner at The Grill," added Mark.

"And that’s only because my sister's restaurant is closed," said Sophie. She narrowed her eyes. Detective Logan rolled his eyes up to the ceiling and looked like he wished he'd never asked.

"Ally and I ate dinner at my house," said Jack.

"So you ruined two dates," said Sophie.

"I'll make this as quick as I can," said Detective Logan, turning away. "Watch over them, please," he told Officer Nixon. The man took up his position at the door. Detective Logan and the other officer left the room, moving into the kitchen. I listened, and tried not to mind when my cabinets were opened, packets were rattled, and drawers were opened and slammed shut. Even my kitchen freezer got the search treatment. After ten minutes, Detective Logan returned with a large zip-lock bag which he handed to the officer following him.

"What is that?" asked Jack. None of them answered.

Detective Logan rifled through the books on my shelves and shook the magazines. He had us all stand up while he lifted the couch cushions and slid his hands under the pillows. He made Mark move over by Jack so he could go through my desk. Taking a sheaf of paper, he looked through it, turning the leaves as he read. Finally, he held his hand out for the bag and turned to me. "I was tipped off to look for two specific items," he said, a frown settling across his forehead as he held the two items out for me to see. "These two specific items. Do you know what they are?"

"Some kind of ingredients?" I asked, wondering what I'd put in a zip-lock bag and later forgotten about.

"Ground peanuts," said Detective Logan. My heart thudded as he continued, "The anonymous caller said I'd find it in the cabinet above your microwave. I found it stuffed at the back behind some plastic boxes."

"I hardly ever use that cabinet! I only store the plastic boxes there since I don't need to reach them too often," I said, mirroring the detective’s frown with one of my own. I couldn't remember ever putting anything in there. My kitchen might have been the size of a postage stamp but I had enough cabinetry for all my ingredients and no need to use a high one that was clearly out of my reach.

"How tall are you?" asked Detective Logan.

"Five-foot-four."

"I thought so. I'm six feet and I could open that cabinet but I had to stand on tiptoes to see inside it and stretched to reach around."

"What's your point?" asked Jack.

Detective Logan gave him a cold look. "My point is it's a difficult place to reach. Seems like an odd area to place one random baggie of ground peanuts. Why store it there at all?"

"I didn't," I told him. "I don't have any nuts in the apartment and even if I did, I keep all my ingredients in the big cabinet next to the refrigerator. I can't reach that cabinet above the microwave unless I drag a chair over. That's why I put the plastic boxes up there."

Sophie looked up, her eyes flashing. "Detective Logan doesn't think you put it there at all."

Our heads turned back to the detective. He raised his eyebrows and shrugged, then held up the paper. "I think you're smart. You wouldn't keep extra nuts in your apartment especially if you just used them to kill someone. You would have already disposed of them. The caller also said to look for paperwork related to nut poisoning. The message specifically mentioned something on your desk. What do I find? Paperwork on nut poisoning. Can you explain that?"

"I can. I did a search on my laptop after Edwin died because I was curious and I wanted to understand more about it. I printed the pages to read later and I must have forgotten about them."

Jack jumped to his feet. "Is someone trying to make it look like Ally killed him?" he asked. "Haven't you already proved she didn't?"

"Sit down, sir."

I reached for Jack, tugging him down as we exchanged worried looks.

"Between the ground up nut-like substance that I think our lab will confirm as the same food toxin that killed Edwin Jones, and a veritable instruction manual on how to do it, yes, I think it looks like Ally knew very well what she was doing," started Detective Logan. The use of my first name grabbed my attention. "The problem is: it's pretty damn neat. An anonymous caller stating exactly where to find these two items? A bag of nuts in a cabinet Ally couldn't use and wouldn't have looked inside to find them herself, along with some convenient, suspicious-looking papers that she admitted printing. Someone definitely wants to make it look like Ally murdered Mr. Jones."

A thought occurred to me. "My laptop stores the history of the web pages I access and I'm sure the date was printed on the pages. You can check both. I accessed those pages after the murder."

"I'll need to take your laptop to check that but I've no doubt you're telling me the truth."

"Take it," I said, hoping I hadn't looked at anything embarrassing recently. The last thing I needed was having Detective Logan or one of his tech guys seeing what I searched online. I was pretty sure there was nothing more exciting than a lot of cooking websites, food vendors, a few online fashion stores, and a couple of gossip websites I occasionally read as a guilty pleasure, but who knew? The worst thing I could think of was Edwin's column, which I accessed after his death too. Oh, no, there was worse. I'd searched Ryan Reynolds a few times! But mostly I just looked at the pictures.

Detective Logan took the laptop from my desk and handed it to the officer who tucked it under his arm.

"Someone's determined to make me take the fall for Mr. Jones' death, aren't they?" I asked. Sophie tucked an arm around me and rubbed my back in a comforting way.

"It seems to me like that could be the case," said Detective Logan. "The information is too specific and too obviously connected for it to not have any bearing on the case. It's the specificity of it that worries me."

"How did they know where those things were?" asked Jack. He shot me a worried glance. It took me a moment to realize the implication of his question and when I did, my jaw dropped as I looked up to Detective Logan.

"Who's been in your apartment most recently?" asked Detective Logan.

"Just me because I live here," I said, rambling as I tried to think. "Jack, Sophie, Mark, you. I don't have a lot of people over."

"Don't ask if anyone of us might want to see Ally go to jail for this," said Sophie. "We don't."

"Is there anyone else who has a key?" asked Detective Logan.

"My mom has one for emergencies. I keep another in my office at the restaurant too."

"Who has access to that?"

I paled, realizing how trusting I'd been. "Anyone. I rarely lock my office and the key sits in the desk drawer. I don't advertise that it's there but someone could have seen it."

"You had Melody use it once, when you asked her to run up and get something," said Jack. "That was just before Christmas."

I nodded, recalling the incident. "We ran out of oregano and I knew I had some in the apartment. My hands were covered in marinade so I sent Melody up there instead."

"Do you know if the key is still there?"

I shook my head. "I don't know."

Detective Logan asked for a key to the restaurant and sent one of his officers downstairs to check for the key in my desk. When he came back a few minutes later, he held it and a couple other keys in his hand. "Is one of these the key?" asked Detective Logan.

"That one," I said, tapping the correct key. "The other two are for the restaurant's rear door and some random key I found on the floor a week ago and tossed into the drawer."

"Anyone who knew about that key could have walked in here," said Mark.

"If they were watching me, they would also know when the apartment was empty," I said, shivering. That thought gave me the creeps. I didn't dare voice the idea that someone came in while I was sleeping. It was too horrible to contemplate.

"I'm going to recommend you change your locks in case someone made a copy of the key," said Detective Logan. "You should consider investing in a security system too."

"And you should come home with us tonight," said Sophie. "I don't think you should stay here."

"I agree," said Mark. "I'll make up the guest room for you."

"And ruin your last babysitter-free Valentine's celebration? No way."

"You could babysit next Valentine's Day in return?" suggested Sophie softly in a cajoling voice that I recognized from my teens. Usually it worked, but as I snuck a glance at Jack, I realized I wasn't ready to be that selfless.

"Nice try, sis."

"Better offer?" she whispered, adding a not-so-discreet nod towards Jack who politely pretended not to notice.

"You could stay at mine," said Jack. This time, my heart really did thump.

"I appreciate that," I said, "but I'm sure my parents will take me in for the night."

"I think Dad mentioned something about taking Mom out."

"I can send over a locksmith," said Detective Logan. "I'll call him and see if he'll come out tonight."

I thanked him, and tried not to sigh at my predicament as he left the room to make a call. His footsteps went downstairs and I heard the door open but since I could still hear his voice, I figured he was examining the lock. "This really creeps me out," said Sophie. "I wish you would come and stay with Mark and me until it's all over."

"Thank you but I'm sure the locksmith will make it perfectly safe. You don't have to worry. You know, something strange did happen," I said, remembering when I found my door unlocked. "I came home and started to put my key in the door and the door was already open. I thought I'd forgotten to pull it closed but now I have to wonder if that's when whoever did this went inside. Maybe they didn't know they had to pull the door harder because it sticks in the winter."

"You need to tell Detective Logan that," said Sophie.

"Tell me what?" asked Detective Logan.

"Ally found her door open earlier when she came home."

"Do you remember closing it?"

"I can't be sure but I think I did."

"Nixon, go see if there're any cameras nearby that might have picked someone up," instructed Detective Logan. "There's a chance something might have been recorded."

"That's great," said Mark. "Maybe you'll catch them."

"It's a long shot but I'll try and get something. Calendar doesn't have a lot of cameras since the crime rate is low but someone might have thought to install one I didn't know about."

"What now?" I asked. "You've executed the warrant. You've found what you were told to find. Can you trace the caller? Perhaps there's a voice I might recognize?"

"It was sent by email and I already have someone looking into the origin," said Detective Logan.

"I'm guessing you already had someone checking it out before you came here," said Mark. "Was it really worth putting Ally through this?"

Detective Logan nodded. "I couldn't ignore the tip without a factual basis to write it off. If it weren't so neat, I would have had to arrest you, Ally."

"I'm glad you didn't but I still want to know what happens next? Is someone going to try and set me up again?"

"They could but so far, no one outside this room knows what happened in here and I'd like to keep it that way. It might well be that someone else thinks they're directing this investigation. Or that this small town cop is too stupid to see anything but the obvious." Detective Logan paused and stuck his thumbs into his belt loops as he relaxed against the wall and tried to stifle a yawn. "To answer your question, not a lot will happen next. I'm not going to haul you down to the station but I am going to have someone discreetly watch you, just in case, and I will continue to investigate these new leads. The locksmith should be here in half an hour. When he's done, you all go about your lives as normal."

"What's normal?" asked Jack. "Someone killed a man where we work and now they’re trying to frame Ally."

"We're not going to let them get away with it," said Sophie. Mark nodded in agreement.

"Ally, what are your plans for tomorrow?" asked Detective Logan.

"I’m going to the community college to see about hiring a new server," I said. "One of my servers quit and I can't reopen the restaurant until I do."

"If you see someone following you, it's probably one of my guys," said Detective Logan. "But call in anything you feel looks suspicious. Can you take someone with you? I'd like to know you're not alone."

"I'm going with her," said Jack. "I'll make sure Ally is in no danger."

Beside me, Sophie let out a soft, "Aww" and I had to nudge her in the ribs.