A Murder In Milburn Book 2 Death Of A Deputy REVAMPED June 2016 SCRIVENER (14 page)

Harvey raised an eyebrow. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he said.

“Yes you do,” Rudy replied. “Have you ever met Ricky before, Harvey? Have you talked to him at all?”

“No,” Harvey said firmly. “I have no idea who he even was.”

“I’ve got a witness that says otherwise,” Rudy said. “Are you sure you don’t want to reconsider?”

“Come on,” Jason said to Nora, putting his arm around hers. “We got to go down to the morgue.”

“Wait, I want to--”

“Rudy will take care of Harvey.” Jason said. “You come with me.”

“Harvey, I didn’t tell anyone…” That wasn’t true. She’d told Sean what the detectives were saying.

But Harvey just gave her a cold look and waved her on. “You do what you have to, Nora.”

The walk down to the morgue was cold and damp, with a puddle of water from a dark, half open door, and a strange chemical scent in the air.

“We really need to clean up down here,” Jason said.

The morgue itself had a thick steel door, and a metal table on which a body covered in a thin white sheet lay.

“This is it,” Jason said. “Do you remember at all what he was wearing yesterday, Nora?”

“A yellow sweatshirt, and blue jeans, I think,” Nora said. “To be honest, I can’t be sure. Jason, I thought you said that he was spotted leaving the county.”

“I wish he had,” Jason said, his voice full of regret. “Anyway, I’m going to have to ask you to identify him, Nora, if possible.”

So saying, he lifted the sheet from the head. Nora looked at the body, shuddered, and then turned away.

*****

Chapter 24

Ricky’s death seemed to put a great load on Nora. It also coincided with a few jobs she had lined up. So, for the next three days, she was so caught up with her work that she had no chance to talk to anyone. She was too busy preparing and delivering her work to her various customers. Her feet ached from standing all day, and her hands from lifting heavy vessels. The one thing no one had told her about a chef’s job was how much physical work went into it.
 

Her work finally done, Nora welcomed the two days of free time stretching ahead of her by kicking off her shoes and collapsing on a sofa, with a cup of green tea in one hand. In one corner of her mind, she seemed to keep looping and re-looping every incident with Ricky. In particular, she remembered how he had fled when Harvey had shown up with Milly on his arm. Her thoughts wandered to Milly, and she wondered how she would feel when Harvey broke up with her. Would she be very upset? Or was Harvey right, had Milly and her father just been using him as a convenient person to stay with while she tried to fight her addiction?

A cry from Mrs. Mullally’s room roused Nora immediately. Rushing up, she found her landlady looking very pale, and clutching her heart.

“Mrs. Mullally!”

“Oh, its nothing, dear,” Mrs. Mullally said. “Just having a little difficulty breathing, is all.” She took short rapid breaths, wincing every so often.

Alarmed, Nora called up Dr. Neil immediately. The Doctor arrived soon enough, with his bag in one hand, his hair sticking up all over the place, wearing an ancient looking yellow shirt with olive green trousers.

Nora waited anxiously outside the room as the Doctor checked up on Mrs. Mullally. Afterwards, he came out, his face looking cheerful.

“I should be as fit as her,” he said. “Not a thing to worry about, Nora. It was just a matter of adjusting her dosage. She’s fine.”

“Should she be resting for the next few days?” Nora fretted. “I keep telling her not to work so hard. She’s up on her feet all day.”

“She needs to do whatever she likes, and be surrounded by cheerful people,” Dr. Neil said. “Like I said, not a thing to worry about, Nora.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” Nora said. “Come to the kitchen, Doctor. If you have the time, I’ve got some lasagna leftover from last night.”

The Doctor looked at his watch. “Well… it seems a little early for lunch, but why not? I could do with some good food. I’ve been living on canned tuna for the last three days because I’ve been too lazy to go grocery shopping.”

“That’s a shame,” Nora said.

“I wish there were a place that delivered home-made food to me,” Dr. Neil said. “Any chance of you starting something like that?”

“I doubt I’ll be starting anything these next few days,” Nora said.
 

“Ah, yes,” the Doctor nodded. “Tina and you were talking about your diner the other day, weren’t you? The day Sean got voted out of office.”

“That seems so long ago,” Nora said. “It’s hard to believe it was only last week.” She reached into the fridge, reheated the lasagna, and spooned some on a delicate china plate, before handing the doctor a fork.

“It was, wasn’t it?” Doctor Neil sighed. “Ah, time… it flows by so fast.”

In this case, Nora thought she could do with time moving even faster.
 

“This is amazing,” Doctor Neil said. “I can’t wait for you to open your own diner, Nora. I think the entire town is staying up at night wondering when it will start.”

“It’s been tough after Raquel’s death,” Nora said.

“Yes. Of course,” he replied. “I was really sorry about that. Raquel was a good girl. A solid citizen. The kind of person that makes this town what it is. The only thing to console ourselves with is that she got the justice she deserved.” He shook his head gravely.

Remembering a conversation they had at Wallis’ funeral, Nora said, “Doctor Neil, Joe mentioned at the funeral that Wallis wanted to become sheriff because he wanted justice for his family. What do you think that meant?”

Instantly, the doctor’s face seemed to harden.
 
“Why do you ask?”

“It’s just that…” Nora hesitated. “I don’t know. It struck me as funny. You’re the town doctor. Did Wallis have any relatives around here?”

“Actually Wallis didn’t come to me,” Doctor Neil said. “I think he preferred to get his medical treatment from out of town.” Dropping his fork in the plate of half-finished lasagna, the Doctor stood up. “Well, I’m a busy man. I think I better get going.”

“Oh, but you didn’t even finish this.” Nora looked up at him. “Doctor Neil, did I offend you in some way?”

“Offend me? Far from it,” Doctor Neil said. “I’m going to see myself out.”

Nora watched him leave, wondering what was going on. One minute he’d been the picture of happiness and good cheer. Next thing she knew, he’d decided to walk himself out.

She went up to check on Mrs. Mullally, who was fast asleep. Maynard, her golden retriever, was sleeping under the bed, with his little black nose peeking out. Seeing Nora, he decided to scramble out, and went to her, wagging his tail. Normally, he would have jumped on her and licked her all over. This time, almost sensing Mrs. Mullally’s health, the dog tiptoed over to Nora, nudged his head on her knee as if to say hello, and then slunk back under the bed.

Poor thing
, Nora thought.
He knows his mommy is ill.
Still, at least the doctor had reassured her that it was only a consequence of age, and Mrs. Mullally was healthy still.

The doorbell rang, and Nora rushed to it, her heart beating faster. This could be… it must be…

“Sean,” her voice dripped with disappointment at finding the lanky figure of the ex-sheriff at her doorstep instead of Harvey.

“I thought we had some things to say to each other, still,” Sean said. He had a bunch of flowers in his hand. “Also, I came to apologize.”

“I don’t want these,” Nora said.
 

“Well, aren’t you egotistic, thinking they’re for you,” Sean teased. “I bought them along for Mrs. Mullally.”

“She’s asleep right now.”

“Good.” Sean walked into the kitchen, helped himself to an empty vase, filled it with some water and placed the flowers in it. Eyeing the plate of lasagna on the counter he said, “Would I be very greedy if I asked if you had extra lasagna in the house?”

With a sour face, Nora walked to the kitchen behind him. He sat on the counter with a big grin, trying to act nonchalant.

“Well?” she asked.

“Well,” he grinned back.

“Sean, how can you act like nothing’s happened?”

“In my mind, nothing has,” he said.
 

“Did you speak to the detectives about your alibi being falsified?” Nora asked, her voice icy.

“Nora…” Sean paused and rubbed his nose.

“Wallis wanted justice for his family,” Nora said, almost to herself.

“Nora, the detectives said they’re probably going to put this one out as a cold case,” Sean said. “I wanted to be the one to tell you because--”

“A cold case? What are you talking about, a cold case?” Nora looked up at him, shocked.

“I’m being reinstalled as Sheriff,” Sean said. “Detectives Jason and Rudy are leaving town, back to their own department.”

“But Ricky’s dead, and--”

“And he was the prime suspect,” Sean said, “Wasn’t he? Detectives Jason and Rudy think he did it.”

“So who killed Ricky?!” Nora exclaimed. “Wallis couldn’t have come back from the dead, could he? Ricky was blackmailing the murderer--”

“You overheard one fragment of conversation that you later recanted on,” Sean said.

“That’s because I was protecting him! Sean,
come on!”
Nora shouted.

Sean didn’t say anything, but Nora thought she could almost read his mind.
Some protection.
It had gotten Ricky killed. She sat down.

“Right,” Sean said, after another second’s pause. “Nora, I think there’s something you need to understand. Life is messy. Sometimes things don’t get resolved. In police work, we see it all the time. Now Wallis was one of us, so believe me when I say we did everything we could to find his murderer.”

“Do Jason and Rudy
really
believe that the case is unsolvable?” Nora asked.

“No, but they do believe that their own departments need them. There’s a limit to how much they can stay on in our little town. One thing more, they’ve assured themselves that I’m now less emotional about Wallis’ death, and that I’ll handle the case fairly.”

Nora couldn’t help it - she let out a short, sharp laugh.

Sean’s face darkened. “You got something to say, Nora?”

“They can’t believe that,” she said. “
You
can’t believe that, Sean. You’re involved with Wallis’ wife.”

“Shhh.” Sean looked around sharply, and made a rapid downward motion with his hands. “Don’t be so loud.”

“Why? You’re not afraid of people finding that out, are you?”

“They won’t find out,” Sean said. “Karen and I have made a decision. Until this case is resolved, we won’t be together.”

“Or you’ll continue sneaking around, just like you were before.”

“We were
not
sneaking around,” Sean said, his voice a low growl. “Don’t make this difficult on me. Or I can make it difficult on you.”

“What?” Nora looked at him, stunned. “Are you threatening me, Sean?”

“Harvey fought with Wallis less than an hour before he was murdered,” Sean said. “Or didn’t you think I’d find that out?”

“So what?” Nora said, trying to hide the little catch in her breath.

Sean smiled. “Nothing. I control this investigation now, and I can choose whether to dig deep into it, or...”

“You’re morally bankrupt, Sean,” Nora said, shaking her head. “Why don’t you just admit that you believe Karen did it, and getting reposted as Sheriff gives you the opportunity to cover up?”

“I
don’t
believe Karen did it,” Sean said. “I’m 100% convinced that she did not kill Wallis. Look at me.” When Nora didn’t, he caught her wrist, and tugged it so that she turned to face him.

“Nora, I love Karen, and I’m sworn to protect her, but if I believed she had killed Wallis, if there was even the shadow of doubt in my mind about it, I would have turned her in,” Sean said. “She was with me all along, Nora. I’m extremely sure she didn’t kill him.”

“You blacked out for a little while, didn’t you?” Nora said. “You weren’t lying about that. So how do you trust your own memory?”

“I trust the person she is,” Sean said. His eyes had that look about them, the look of a man utterly devoted to a person.

“Love makes you blind, Sean,” Nora said.

“No, love makes you
see
,” Sean said. “I truly believe that infatuation makes you blind, whereas love opens you up to every single fault in a person, and none of it matters because love overpowers you. But still, I promise you this, Nora, I’m going to do my best to solve Wallis’ murder. In my own way.”

“You’re not being objective,” Nora said. “You
know
you’re not.”

“I know that you ought to forget this whole business and move on,” Sean said. “Focus on your own diner. Take the money Tina’s offered you, and make a go of it, instead of wasting your time on the pointless death of a wild man.”

“What about Ricky, then?” Nora asked. “Or will you dismiss his death too?”

“I’m dismissing nothing,” Sean said, standing up. “Nora, if you and I were ever friends, if you feel I’ve ever helped you and that you owed me for it, I’m begging you now, keep Karen and my love a secret for now. I promise that if you have faith in me, I
will
do my best to solve this case.”