A Zest for Murder (Sky High Pies Cozy Mysteries Book 5) (13 page)

CHAPTER
33

Zack was sitting at the end of the
bar when I stepped through the front door at The Wagon Wheel Saloon. He was
talking to Red Hancock, the establishment’s illustrious owner and ever-present
bartender.

“Sorry I’m late!” I wrapped my arms
around Zack’s neck and pulled him in for a kiss. “I ran into somebody on the
way and needed to catch him while I could.”

Red snorted. “That’s the best you
can do, Katie?”

I glowered at the brawny barkeep
before turning back to the good-looking hunk standing beside me. “Can you give
me a sec, sweetheart?”

“Anything you need,” Zack said,
patting the empty barstool beside where he’d been sitting. “I’ll even save you
a seat.”

I pulled out my phone and dropped
my purse on the bar. “I need to call Trent before I do anything else.”

Zack pointed across the crowded
room. “Why don’t you just wander over and talk to him?” he asked. “Trent’s in a
booth back there with Amanda and Denny.”

Amanda Crane and Denny Santiago
were two of Crescent Creek’s finest patrol officers. They’d been partners for
the past few months, protecting and serving our little slice of paradise.
They’d also saved my rear from a close call with a gun-toting former resident
in the not too distant past.

“Okay,” I said, giving Zack another
quick kiss and slipping the phone into my bag. “In that case, I’ll be back in a
jiffy.”

After navigating the boisterous
crowd and exchanging quick greetings with a few Sky High regulars, I arrived at
the booth were Trent and the two officers were quietly studying the menu.

“I’d stay away from the fried
zucchini sticks,” I advised. “I heard something on the news that a new study
claimed they’re just as fattening as cheese fries with bacon gravy.”

Trent glanced up. “The voice of
self-control has arrived, ladies and gentlemen.” He shifted over on the seat to
make room. “Join us for a bite to eat?”

I settled onto the leather cushion.
“Zack and I are meeting a couple of other people,” I said, bobbing my head
toward the bar. “He told me that you guys were over here, so…” I leaned in and
lowered my voice. “I may have something for you on the Tipper situation.
Remember Kyle Gallagher?” I paused and Trent answered with a silent nod. “Well,
I just saw him talking to a woman, and I’m pretty sure she was walking the dog
that I saw outside of Tipper’s the day before she went missing.”

“Who was she?” asked Amanda.

I frowned. “I don’t know. I never
got a look at her face. But she had long dark hair. And she was wearing a pair
of jeans with red lace stitched down the outside of the left leg.”

Trent chuckled. “That’s why I’m
glad you’re back in town,” he said. “You catch details that tons of people
would never notice. So, in a case like this, your powers of observation are—”

“Thanks, Trent,” I interrupted. “By
the time I found a place to park and walked back to the coffee shop, they were
fighting about something.”

“What?” he asked.

I shrugged. “I don’t know. But from
the way Gallagher was seething and pointing at her, I’d say it was something
pretty intense.”

One of my favorite Wagon Wheel
servers approached the booth. “Hey, Katie! How’ve you been?”

“I’m good, Zoey. You?”

She smiled. “Can’t complain.”

“Well, you could,” Trent said. “But
it’s not gonna do one lick of good.”

Zoey and I locked eyes and she
winked. “What can I bring you, doll?”

“Oh, I’m fine,” I answered. “I’m
actually heading back to the bar in a sec.”

“Okay.” She slowly surveyed the
table. “How’s everybody else doing with their Diet Cokes and club soda?”

Trent and Amanda nodded.

“We’ll be back once we’re off the
clock for a beer,” Denny said, reaching for his glass. “This is just a pit stop
for some much-needed fuel.”

“Speaking of which,” Zoey said.
“Are you ready to order?”

“Maybe in a couple of minutes,”
Trent said. “Katie was in the middle of telling us something, so we’ll wait
until she’s bounced back to Prince Charming over there.”

Zoey glanced across the room. “Oh, heck!
I didn’t even see Zack come in.” She shot a wide smile at me. “You guys make
such a great couple, Katie!”

Trent groaned. “So everyone is
always telling her.”

We waited until Zoey had left
before resuming our discussion of Kyle Gallagher and the mystery woman.

“What was that about a dog?” asked
Denny.

“I’m certain it was the same one
that I saw outside of Tipper’s,” I said. “I don’t know what kind—just a small,
white ball of fluffy fur. But it had a very distinctive collar: bright pink
with rows of Swarovski crystals around it, so I’m, like, ninety-nine percent
sure it was the same dog.”

Denny frowned. “What kind of
crystals?”

“Swarovski,” I answered. “I mean,
they looked like them, but…just crystals, you know? Kind of like tiny, square
fake diamonds arranged in a band around the dog’s neck.”

Trent scoffed and sipped his Diet
Coke.

“But you didn’t get a look at the
woman’s face?” Amanda said. “Just now or when you saw her outside of Tipper’s?”

I shook my head. “That’s just it;
the dog was being walked by a guy when I saw it the other day. And I saw one of
those frilly toothpicks at the Moonlight—” I looked at Trent and smiled.
“Remember? I told you that the guy walking the dog had one in his mouth? And
then I saw another one on the front porch after talking to Mrs. Flanagan?”

Denny chuckled. “Frilly toothpick?”

“Yeah, Santiago,” Trent said
firmly. “Didn’t you read the case notes?”

I saw Denny’s jaw tighten before he
managed a smile. “Guess I missed a couple of things,” he said. “I take it
there’s a frilly toothpick connection?”

“Just a coincidence at this point,”
I said. “Although I actually suspect the guy I saw walking the dog the other
day—the one with the toothpick in his mouth—could possibly be Dermot Flanagan
or Kyle’s brother.”

“Wait a sec,” Trent said. “I
thought the guy was just rambling on due to exhaustion and nerves when he came
by earlier. Are you saying that you actually
do
suspect Gallagher’s
brother is involved?”

“Yes,” I answered. “As well as
Dermot Flanagan, the woman with the dark hair
and
Kyle Gallagher.”

“Whoa,” Trent said. “What are you
basing that on, Katie?”

“Instinct,” I said. “There was
something about the way he looked and sounded when I ran into him on the way
over here.”

Trent nodded, squinting as he
processed the information. Then he said, “Okay, we’ll take another look at a
few things as soon as we get a bite to eat. And I’ll reach out to the Las
Cruces PD to see what they know about Gallagher’s brother.”

He reached into his shirt pocket,
retrieved a small notebook and went back in for a ballpoint pen. Then he
scribbled a note and shoved the two items back into the pocket.

“Have you tried using your phone
for that?” I asked.

He sneered. “For what?”

“To make notes about your cases,” I
explained. “It’s a lot faster and much more efficient. You just tap and swipe,
enter your information and then hit
Save
. It’s a brave new world out
here, Deputy Chief Walsh. Technology is your friend.”

The sneer on his face moved into an
all-out scowl. “Is that right? Well, Katie, I don’t need any more friends at
this point. What I need is to find Tipper Hedge before the lunatics that
kidnapped her do something that we all regret.”

CHAPTER
34

Zack was in the middle of telling
Red a story about Gretchen Goode and the newspaper’s sports columnist when I
made my way back to the bar.

“How’d it go?” he asked.

Red leaned in. “Yeah, Katie. I kept
an eye on you and the folks in blue; Trent looked a little unhappy at one
point.”

I groaned. “That’s how he looks ninety
percent of the time. I guess he was born a half-empty kind of guy.”

The front door opened and a group
of boisterous regulars rushed in from the sidewalk. Zack shouted a quick
greeting to one of the cluster—a skinny bald guy named Howell who worked in
advertising sales at the
Gazette
—before they crossed the room and
gathered around one of the pool tables.

“Will you lovebirds excuse me?” Red
announced in a deep, comical voice. “I’m going to see what that band of
hooligans is drinking tonight.”

After he left and I had a few sips
of wine, Zack asked for an update on Tipper.

“She’s still missing,” I said. “And
the PD is doing everything they can. Trent just got a call from Dina as I was
leaving their table. The CSP pulled over—”

“The
what
?” Zack said above
the noise from the new arrivals. “Did you say ‘ESP.’”

I pressed my mouth to his ear. “No,
silly. CSP; the Colorado State Patrol. They just pulled over a car near
Downieville that was going ninety-five on I-70.”

“So?”

I shrugged. “Nothing definite yet,”
I answered. “But it was a woman. With a small white dog. And two of Tipper’s
credit cards.”

I couldn’t help but smile. Trent
had told me that the CSP thought she might have something to do with the BOLO
on the black BMW.

“But didn’t you tell me that they
found Tipper’s car?”

“Yes, but the CSP called because of
the credit cards,” I answered. “And the bulletin also mentioned a white fluffy
dog. Since there was a pooch in the car and the woman was refusing to
cooperate, they called Trent as a courtesy.”

“Why are you smiling?” asked Zack.

“Because I’m pretty sure that’s the
dog I saw outside of Tipper’s the other day,” I said. “And I just saw it again
less than thirty minutes ago with a woman who was talking to Kyle Gallagher.”

He laughed. “Katie, I hate to break
the news, but there are lots of little white dogs in the world.”

“I know, but how many have bright
pink collars?” I said with a smile. “And how many little white dogs with bright
pink collars are stopped by the State Patrol in a car driven by a woman who has
two of Tipper’s credit cards in her pocket?”

He laughed and raised his glass.
“Then that’s good news, right?”

“Let’s hope so,” I said as our
friends scurried in the door. “Let’s hope Tipper’s home safe and sound as soon
as possible.”

CHAPTER
35

Later that night, after dinner with
Zack and our friends, I drove home to Sky High, climbed the stairs to my
apartment and collapsed onto the bed.

“Maybe I’ll just wear this outfit
tomorrow,” I mumbled, gazing at the spidery crack in the ceiling. “But someone
might notice…” I rolled over, staring into the open closet across the room. “So
what am I going to—”

The phone vibrated on the side
table.

“I hope that’s something good,” I
said, glancing at the display. “From Deputy Chief…” I swiped the screen. “Hi,
Trent. What’s the latest?”

“I hope I didn’t wake you, Katie.”

“Is there news?” I asked.

“I just got off with the CSP
again,” he reported. “The woman they stopped on the interstate had some other interesting
things in her possession besides Tipper’s credit cards.”

“Do they also belong to Tipper?”

“Some of them,” he answered. “They
also found the phone Tipper used to call you…Sturges or something? Remember?
She’s the school teacher in Las Cruces who…” I could hear him pawing through
the things on his desk. “Anyway, I’ve got it written down here on one of these
scraps of paper. But I know it’s the same name.”

I waited until he stopped to take a
breath. “I remember,” I said. “It’s Tania Sturges.”

Trent grumbled. “Okay, sure.”

“Did the woman tell the CSP where
Tipper’s being held?”

“She claims that she doesn’t know,”
he said. “The most they got from her before she asked for a lawyer was
something about Kyle Gallagher’s brother and Dermot Flanagan hiring her to be
their administrative assistant for some kind of business down in Albuquerque.”

“What about the dead woman?” I
asked. “Did she help ID her?”

“Yes,” Trent said. “Her name was
Claire Cain. She’d been dating Dermot Flanagan for a few weeks. And, if the
woman’s story is to be believed, Claire was accidentally shot during an
argument with Dermot about how they were going to spend the ransom money.”

The news seemed somehow fitting,
like another jagged piece had slipped into the puzzle. I’d been involved in
enough investigations when I was a PI to recognize crimes that had been
carefully crafted as well as those that seemed slapdash and spontaneous. From
the very beginning, Tipper’s abduction felt like it was more the latter; a
series of jumbled and messy actions that indicated the perpetrators probably
had a goal of some sort—in this case, kidnap Tipper for ransom—without taking
much care to ensure that they hadn’t left a trail of breadcrumbs scattered in
their wake after fleeing the scene of the crime.

“What do you think?” asked Trent.

I’d been daydreaming, so I wasn’t
certain if I’d missed his last remark.

“About what?” I said hesitantly.

“The whole thing,” he answered.
“You’ve worked kidnappings before, haven’t you?”

“Don’t be difficult, Trent.
Remember Walter Shipp?”

“Um…”

“I helped find him after he was
abducted by Pepper McIntosh and her band of lunatics.”

Trent chuckled. “Yeah, yeah. I
hadn’t forgotten, Katie. I was…” The sound of scrunching papers came over the
line again. “So, anyway? What do you think?”

“I’d guess she’s still in the
area,” I said.

“Since she wasn’t in the trunk of
the car when it was found on Yukon?”

“More because I saw the woman and
the dog talking to Kyle Gallagher tonight,” I said. “And he was behaving
strangely, as if I’d caught him doing something naughty.”

“Such as?”

I groaned. “Use your imagination,
Trent. He and Tipper have only known one another a short time. It sounds like
maybe he’s involved with his brother and Dermot Flanagan in a business that’s
gone south. And he knows that Tipper’s mother is wealthy.”

“Ah, I see where you’re going,
Katie.”

“It’s a classic scenario,” I said.
“Guy meets girl. Girl’s family member has bucks. Guy needs an emergency
infusion of cash. Girl’s fairly vulnerable because of her dodgy romantic history.
Guy sweet talks girl, romancing her with candlelit dinners and red roses and
seemingly genuine professions of love.”

He grunted. “‘Seemingly genuine
professions of love,’ Katie?”

“What would you call it?”

“Pile of manure,” Trent said. “Guys
like that give guys like me a bad name.”

I didn’t want to debate the merits
of the observation, so I asked Trent what more the State Patrol had learned
from the woman caught speeding on the interstate.

“She likes Dr. Pepper,” he said.

“Excuse me?”

He repeated the line. “And that’s
it, unfortunately. After she told them about working for Clark Gallagher and
Dermot Flanagan, she asked for a lawyer and a can of Dr. Pepper before making
it quite clear that she was done talking.”

“Figures,” I grumbled. “The first
solid lead we get and she refuses to help.”

“I don’t know about that,” Trent
said. “We’ve got the car now. And you saw her in Crescent Creek earlier. So I
think your theory’s totally right, Katie.”

“About Tipper being somewhere
nearby?”

“You betcha,” he agreed. “And about
Kyle Gallagher’s brother and Dermot Flanagan being involved. I’m not going to
rest until we get Tipper back home safe and those punks are singing like
canaries.”

I rolled my eyes at the cliché, but
knew that Trent meant well.

“I remember Dermot Flanagan,” he
said as I got up from the bed and drifted down the hall toward the kitchen.
“Guy was a snotty jerk. His brother was the cool one.”

“Daniel?”

“Yeah, I always liked him better.
Seemed real levelheaded and smart. That’s probably why we got along so well.”

“Because you’re levelheaded and
smart?”

“If you say so,” Trent said.

“Well, I do. I know that you’re
levelheaded and smart, Deputy Chief Walsh.”

“Jeez, Katie. That’s so sweet of
you—”

“And I also know that I need to get
off the phone and catch forty winks.”

“Copy that,” he said. “I’ll be in
touch as soon as we know something, okay?”

“Same for me, good buddy. If I come
across anything at all that I think will be helpful, you’ll be the first person
to hear about it.”