Chapter Twenty-One

“And then she said he’s been writing romance for the last several years under his pen name.” I couldn’t believe it, even as I said it. Mary Trevors was one of my very favorite authors in the whole wide world. She told her stories with such emotional depth. Her quirky sense of humor hit me right in my funny bone. No more Beckington stories to look forward to. No more family stories that made me laugh and made me cry. If I could bring Jackson back to life, I’d do it just to kill him again for taking away my all-time favorite author. Thoughts of the notebook I’d found in Trev’s house surfaced, and I vowed to look at it again once I was done here. I might have the last work from my favorite author sitting in my backpack.

“I can’t believe it, although that does explain the page of numbers I found in the second bedroom. Must have been his royalty statement. It might have been sappy crap, but it sure was paying well,” Ben said, shaking his head and scratching his chin at the same time. “Trev was such a man’s man, how could he write all that sappy crap? Unbelievable.”

“You already said that. And it wasn’t sappy crap. It was good, wonderful fiction about life, and love, and the sacrifices one makes for the relationship.” Like the ones I was making. Sure, Ben had the lawn mowed when I came home and something very delicious-smelling bubbling in the crockpot. But I’d also found a ton of dirty socks on the bedroom floor. Add them to the stone cold load of laundry in the washer that smelled a little musty when I went to put my own laundry into it, and you had major sacrifice. He said it was because I had a more awesome setup than the coin-operated deal in the basement of his building, but come on! At least move the clothes into the dryer before they had to be washed again.

I had sent him down the hall to start his laundry for the second time. When he came back, I told him about the romance-writing thing. You’ve already seen his reaction. Yeesh!

“And you said you had your own dirty secret when you confessed your love of gardening and wanted to get your hands in my dirt.” I sat back in my chair with my hands tucked around my waist.

“But that’s gardening, not sissy romance writing.” He blew out a breath, shaking his head.

“We’re not going to agree on this, so let’s move forward.” I wasn’t going to convince him that romance was a wonderful way to escape reality. I also didn’t want to hear him disparage it anymore.

“But romance?”

“Let it go.” I gave him the Evil Eye. “I bet you secretly read my romances when you’re taking your bubble baths, and you’re just saying these things on principle.” I barely contained my giggle when his whole face went red. But I moved on. We had more important things to discuss than the fact that I was most likely right. Although I did make a mental note to catch him at his romance reading at some point so I could poke the finger at him next time.

“Anyway.”

“Yes, anyway,” I said, tapping a finger on the kitchen table and humming to myself at the same time. It was the tune Bella had been humming earlier, but it wasn’t helping, so I stopped. “We have about an hour until your frame buyer is here. We need to make strides before he comes.”

“Well, what do we have? If those towels were put in Bella’s bin after Jackson was dead, then maybe he didn’t kill Trev in the first place.” He raised the one eyebrow that still made me want to lick it.

I shook my head. Of course, he took the gesture wrong.

“What? I think it’s a workable theory.”

“I do, too.”

“Then why were you shaking your head?”

I blew out a breath as the other eyebrow winged up. I sure wished I could master my eyebrows that way. Unfortunately, it had nothing to do with what we were talking about now. No, what we had going on was much more serious. If we didn’t figure this out soon, I was afraid more people would die. But what was the connection between Jackson and Trev, other than having grown up in the same town? When I’d considered the idea Trev was running a scam, I thought they’d had something in common. But at this point there was not a lot linking them together. And why would Jackson have killed Trev?

I blew out another breath, this one in frustration. “Okay, we need to do a little more digging. Can you go over to where Jackson was staying and see if you can get in, or at least find out what the police have?” I looked up at his grunt. I hated when he grunted. “What?”

“I wanted to be here when you did the transaction with the frame guy. I don’t think you should be alone.”

“And I don’t think we both need to be here. This is getting worse, Ben, and we need to find the killer. It’s bad enough we’ve had all these deaths around here in the last year or so. We can’t have a serial killer on our hands.”

“Okay. Okay. I understand.”

And if he didn’t look like a pouting little child, I didn’t know what did. I patted him on the arm, then got up when he did. “I’ll be fine. I promise I’ll watch myself. My dad said he was coming over in about thirty minutes to watch out for me, too.”

“Well, I guess that’s better than nothing,” he said grudgingly as he kicked the leg of the table.

He was being a big baby, but I wasn’t going to point that out to him at this time. I needed him to do some checking for me and didn’t want his resentment to ride along with him.

****

The sun sank quietly into the trees behind my small property. The man who wanted to buy my frames was ten minutes late, but since I didn’t have much else to do, I figured it wouldn’t kill me to stay out by the garage for another five or ten minutes hoping he showed up. If I could get this frame thing cleared up for Ben, then maybe we could fully concentrate on catching a killer before he killed again.

“Excuse me,” said a creaky voice behind me, making me nearly jump out of my skin. I did whip around, however, and found myself face to balding head with a slightly stooped man who had to be somewhere in his early seventies. I looked up and down the street to see if my frame man was on his way, but I didn’t see anyone else around.

“Yes, what can I do for you?” I asked. If the man wanted to use my bathroom or something, I might have to decline, Martha’s Point hospitality or no. Plus, my dad was inside my room, peeking out at the garage with binoculars. I couldn’t allow anyone in, just in case.

“I’m here to see someone about picture frames they have for sale? Are you the lady I’m looking for?” He peered at me, then scrutinized a piece of paper in his splotchy, bony hand. “Seems to be the right address.”

This was the guy? This man who looked a little like a waif? Then again, to be fair, a lot of people looked waif-like compared to me.

“Um, yeah, that’s me. Did you want to come in for a cup of coffee, or something?”

“No, no, that’s okay.” He patted my hand. “I just wanted to see the frames, and then I’ll get out of your hair.” He shot me a beatific smile. (Nice word.)

I walked him across the grass, chatting at him. Not my forte, but I felt I should at least try. Ben and I had specifically gone to the craft store down the road and bought pretty much every single frame they had. I’d stacked them against the wall after taking off most of the price tags. I’d even collected a few from the people around my house who hadn’t been hit yet.

It creeped me out a little that this could possibly be the guy who had been hitting the people in town for their frames. But I felt relatively safe because my dad was in the house with his binoculars. On the other hand, I couldn’t imagine this guy knocking over a bunch of houses looking for frames.

I had successfully talked myself out of being scared by the time we reached the garage. “So, here’s what I have.”

His eyes popped wide open when I rolled back the door to show the many frames lining the inside of the building. I thought I saw a little bit of drool collect at the side of his mouth, but maybe it was just because he was old.

He began to haggle almost immediately, but only for one frame. He was fierce. I wasn’t up to trying to get him to pay more than twenty dollars for the large oak frame he wanted to buy, so it was a loss from Walmart. At least I’d be able to cross off one person on the list before waiting for another call. Dammit! Total waste of time.

I helped the man out to his car with the bulky frame. Patting the twenty in my front pocket, I waved him out of my driveway. Now I had to go in and tell my dad it was a no-go. After that, I’d call Ben on his cell to let him know it was a bust.

When I tromped into the kitchen, the heavenly smell of something spicy filled the kitchen. My dad was sitting at the table instead of looking out the window. He and Ben were talking, but the conversation abruptly halted when they saw me. Dammit, I shouldn’t have announced my presence. I could have gotten the main scoop, but I hadn’t even seen Ben enter the house. Very weird.

“Ivy!” my dad boomed. I knew right away he had been interrogating Ben on his intentions toward me. I gave Ben a glare I hoped he interpreted correctly. I would kill him myself if he’d said anything to my dad about wanting to marry me. It was bad enough he’d practically moved into my house without my permission.

“I only sold one frame. He doesn’t look like our guy.” Yanking open the refrigerator, I pulled out a bottle of water. “I’m going down to the Shoppe now to help Charlie close up for the day. I’ll be back later.”

“Don’t be too late,” Ben called to my retreating back. “The beef stew will be done in about an hour, and I’m making biscuits from scratch.”

I closed the door on my dad asking if he could stay over for dinner. Did Ben think cooking was the way to my heart? I wouldn’t say no to the delicious-smelling stew, but he already owned my heart. I hoped he knew that.

Forty-five minutes later, I waved Charlie out of The Masked Shoppe. He bounced merrily down the stairs with his first paycheck in his pocket and a smile on his face.

Turning back to the store, I made one last check of the front room. Everything was straight and tidy. If I wasn’t mistaken, it looked as if Mr. Hanks had been here again to buy more banana hammocks. I was glad to have escaped that visit.

As a last precaution, I stepped into the back room with its lingerie, toys, feather boas, and beautiful sideboards.

I’d paid dearly for the one sideboard, so I caressed it before moving on. I really wanted to hide something in its fake leg simply because I could. But I hadn’t found anything small enough yet. The last thing it had held was a sack of diamonds, but I had nothing like that.

Everything checked out, so I went back up front to lock the door. I heard a whistle in the air, felt a crack on the back of my head, and everything went black. Again. Damn.