Cancelled by Murder (20 page)

Her crooked smile appeared. “There's a rumor going around about red paint found at the crime scene across the street, and I would have bet money that our own little private eye here would be trying to trace the source.”

I was more than a bit annoyed. First, I wasn't “little.” More accurately, next to Andrea's pudgy five-two or so, and her shorter-than-average brother and husband, I was an Amazon. Second, I wasn't a private eye; I was a semiofficial deputy with the NAPD. Until last night, anyway. Finally, I wanted to say, “Thanks, Andy, for reminding me about the red blob found on Daisy's wrist.” I now knew it was paint, not blood and not ink.

“I guess I have what I came for,” I said.

Pete seemed confused, but rose to the occasion. “We should all be relieved that this terrible crime is behind us.
It doesn't matter who solved it.” He removed his hands from his pockets and brushed them off, either because his apron was dusty or because he wanted to be rid of the unpleasant topic.

“Amen,” Andrea said, turning to walk away.

“You know, I've been meaning to ask you, Andrea,” I said to her retreating back. “How come I wasn't invited to the meeting about the farmers' market proposal the other night?”

Andrea grunted. “Why on earth would we include a prodigal daughter who might beat it back to Boston any day?” she answered, still walking.

Pete was clearly dismayed, as he had been when I queried him yesterday. “Anything else, Cassie?” he asked me, extra polite, to make up for his sister's rudeness. “Still want some supplies?”

“Another time,” I said. I patted my jacket pocket. “I think that's my phone.”

Fortunately, it wasn't, but I could slip away on the ruse.

*   *   *

Home on my rocker, half-asleep from a many-layered sandwich I'd bought from Mahican's packaged-foods counter, I was pleased to have another piece of data. Red paint. I tried to fill in the blanks of why that mattered. Had Jules recently painted something in his office? The only painted surfaces I remembered were the brown baseboards and the white walls. But I'd been there only once and hadn't scouted around, either.

I sat up, flashing on another source. Cliff Harmon, and his semilegal rummaging upstairs in Jules's office.

Was I really about to initiate a call to Daisy's husband, the guy I was purportedly glad to be rid of for a while? I weighed the options. A boring afternoon with a vacuum cleaner and dust cloth, or the chance to put pieces of a puzzle together. I punched Cliff's number.

“Cassie?” Cliff seemed almost happier to hear from me than Quinn or Linda would be. Certainly more pleased than Sunni would have been. “Cassie, I'm glad you called. What's up?”

“First”—(I lied)—“how are you?”

“Good as can be expected, you know. I got here after a layover at JFK, believe it or not. I was a wreck, thinking, what if they took Daisy off the plane in New York by mistake? They didn't, of course, and a friend of Daisy's parents drove them to the Miami Airport to pick me up. Daisy was picked up directly by the funeral home, and now we're all just waiting to be able to see her.”

Cliff's voice was shaky and excited at the same time. I imagined he hadn't had much sleep. And facing his in-laws couldn't have been fun. Still, he continued talking, giving me details of the weather (“hot and humid, like home”) as well as the service in a couple of days. “Any news there, Cassie? About Jules?”

“They have a warrant out,” I said, though I wasn't even sure that was the right term. “They're looking for him.”

He blew out a breath and I knew he was wondering if there was any hope that his money was safe, or that he'd see justice for his wife's murder. Before I could gather courage to ask my question, Cliff got ahead of me.

“Do you know anything more about that red paint they're talking about?” he asked. “Did they find the receipt?”

“How did you hear about that?”

“You know I'm friends with Pete. He told me the cops were asking if Jules bought red paint recently.”

“I'm surprised Pete was willing to own up to any knowledge of the case. Unless . . . did you bully him again?”

“I might have. He's Jules's landlord, after all, so I might have leaned on him for information. There have to be some perks to this low-paying job. And you got to remember, I know everyone's alarm codes.”

It was nice to hear a chuckle from the grieving widower. “Did he? I mean, did Jules buy red paint?” I asked.

“Apparently, some receipts got screwed up on the cash register and they can't tell for sure. Pete doesn't have the most up-to-date system. But there was a small open can of the same color red on Jules's little porch on the second floor.”

“I'm not sure why that incriminates him. It might have been bought years ago, even by another tenant. Do you remember seeing anything red in Jules's office when you were looking around?”

“Not really.”

“Don't you find that curious?” I asked.

“No, I don't. Maybe he painted something at home. Maybe he helped a friend touch up a red fence.” He paused, breathing hard. “Cassie, are you trying to clear Jules?” Cliff's voice turned sour.

I wished we weren't having this conversation over the phone. Or at all. “No, no. I'm just trying to understand.” And be sure we had the right person.

“Well, I understand completely. And I hope they catch him pretty quick, before he spends all our hard-earned money.”

“I'm with you one hundred percent, Cliff, and I hope the same thing. I'm sorry I upset you.”

“It's okay. It's not the greatest time for me, you know. I wish I were home in a way. But in another way, I'd like to stay down here and hide out where there are no memories. I'm not sure I can go back to North Ashcot and just pick up where I left off last week.”

I wished I could give him advice, but I knew for a fact that nothing would help until more time had passed. A lot more. “Is there anything I can do for you up here while you're away?”

“Yeah, tell that best friend of yours who's the police chief to get on the ball and find Jules Edwards and slap him in jail.”

I promised I'd try. I was glad I'd held back and not admitted that I was leaning toward a rigged-up red paint story.

T
he afternoon news was all Jules Edwards, all the time, his face coming up on the screen continually. There was talk of decades of white-collar crime, citing other cities he'd lived in, other client victims who might be willing to be named. I found it impressive that the media could pull together all that (dis?)information so quickly. The main photo shown was of a much younger man. I guessed it was taken during his college days, which were probably about thirty years ago. That estimate also fit with the eighties hairstyle—longish and straight in the back with a bird's nest on top. Maybe when you strike out as a career embezzler, you make sure you're not looking straight at the camera.

I thought about Jules's office and the lack of personal photos there. Most local businesspeople made sure to be seen around town, donating to academic programs or athletics and hanging the evidence of their generosity on their
walls in the form of photo ops with city and state officials. But Jules was not trying to be the face of North Ashcot.

No one offered guesses about where the errant accountant might have gone. He'd apparently never married and had no family anyone was aware of. “I wouldn't be surprised,” said one anchorwoman, “if he's lived under more than one name.”

One interviewee, a man on the street who was somewhat familiar to me, mentioned that “Edwards was a newcomer. Here only about ten years.” That was North Ashcot for you. Ten years barely got you on the voter registry.

Finally, Ben himself had a theory, as laid out in one of our catch-up phone calls. “You say Cliff is in Miami?”

“Yes, you know—to put his wife to rest there.”

“And he'll be back?”

“I imagine so, though he did mention he thought he might have a hard time adjusting to North Ashcot without Daisy.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Uh-huh what?”

“Nothing. Just Jules is gone and Cliff might also be gone. Seem like a coincidence to you?”

I blew out a breath. Here was Ben, not letting go of Cliff as his main suspect. “Yes,” I said. “Yes, it does seem like a coincidence.”

I hung up, only the tiniest bit of doubt insinuating itself into my mind.

Having exhausted the red paint issue, I turned my attention to the meeting I hadn't been invited to, which I was now convinced had to do with the farmers' market proposal. Was it the ten-year problem? Angela had implied as much, with
her accusation that I couldn't be trusted to stay around very long. Or was there another reason?

I thought back to the group of people I'd seen outside the salon. At the time, I couldn't figure out what they had in common. I ran through the list in my head again. Reggie Harris, developer and owner of the property suggested for the market; Andrea Harris, his wife and part-time hardware store employee in the store owned by her brother, Pete, who had also been present; Molly Boyd, beauty salon owner; Fran Rogers, bank teller; Mike Forbes, bike shop owner; Fred Bateman, antiques shop owner. An assortment of other businesspeople I couldn't name, but recognized from the dry cleaners, the phone company store, and Paulie's Party Planet. Plus Catherine Bright, our chief real estate agent, whose face was on every bench in town.

This time, I added a list of people who were not present. Not Liv Patterson, card shop owner, or Rosie Vaughn, who ran the bakery on the corner of Second and Main, or the Chaplin brothers, who operated the convenience market, though the brothers had never shown an interest in being a true grocery store anyway.

Eliminating myself as a newcomer, I examined the groupings. I was sure it had to be their businesses and not their personal lives that brought them together for the meeting or disinvited them. Finally, I had it, so obvious I couldn't believe it had taken me this long. It served me right for focusing on the quilters and on my own small-minded desire to fit in.

The answer: None of the attendees had business interests that conflicted with those of the vendors at a farmers'
market. Every one of them was a potential supporter of Reggie Harris's proposal. Not only did they have nothing to lose; they had everything to gain from the influx of weekend shoppers.

I sat back on my rocker, a mug of fresh coffee on the table next to me. One that Quinn had found for me recently. It was time to call in a favor from my absent boyfriend. Hadn't he all but stood me up this weekend? Promising to come back with a present. Putting it off, a day at a time. For all I knew, he was dining in style, not at a vending machine, while I was slaving away, working at my job, plus working overtime, pounding the pavement to help the police with a homicide investigation.

I'd become a drama queen, marvel of exaggeration, but the strategy had worked on my psyche and given me the confidence I needed to approach Quinn. I'd thought of the perfect excuse to query him and, even better, I'd tracked him down while he was enjoying a Sunday-afternoon nap.

“No problem,” he said when I gave in and apologized for waking him up. “I sleep when I'm bored.”

“I'm feeling down today. Like I'm being left out of things,” I said. I refreshed his memory about seeing his boss at the gathering of businesspeople on Friday night. “Can you find out from Fred what that meeting was about? Do you think he'd tell you if I was doing something to alienate people?”

“It was nothing like that, Cassie. I'm sure of it. I'm sorry you've been worried about that.”

Was this going to be easier than I thought? The best that I could hope for—that Quinn already knew what the
meeting was about? Was I a bad person for taking advantage of a nice guy? I braced myself. I couldn't back down now. “I know I'm still thought of as a newcomer, or even worse, as someone who fled town and came crawling back. But I've been trying my best.”

“Trust me, Cassie—that meeting had nothing to do with whether people like you or not or whether you're doing a good job. You're doing a great job, in fact. It's your customers who matter and we know they love you.”

I didn't go so far as to sniffle, but aimed for sounding a little hurt. “How can you be so sure?”

He cleared his throat and I heard him take a swallow—sipping his favorite lime-flavored sparkling water, I'd have bet. We called it his comfort drink. “Well, it's supposed to be confidential, but it's not like it's about national security or I'm breaching a legal contract.” He took a breath. “The meeting was to gather support for the farmers' market proposal. Reggie Harris pulled together the people who would benefit from having one in town. Including Ashcot's Attic, of course, so Fred was there. There's no doubt that communities benefit from increased shopping opportunities, on weekends especially. And you've always claimed your job prohibits you from participating in political gatherings. I'm sure that's the only reason you weren't invited.”

I took a sip of my own comfort drink, now lukewarm. “That makes sense,” I said. “I'll bet Reggie's offering incentives for support, since it's his property and all.”

“Oh, sure, they're negotiating some kind of deal. But Reggie apparently has much bigger plans for the town. He's calling it ‘Plan North Ashcot' or something like that, trying to
build on a lot of unused property on the outskirts. New playground, arts center, if I remember correctly. The farmers' market is kind of the kickoff project.”

“And he'll be asking for support for all that, I guess. I'll bet the motivation to participate is pretty attractive.”

“Yeah, he'll probably include mention of the participating businesses on flyers, call them sponsors or something.”

“Or offer kickbacks?”

“Nothing illegal, if that's what you mean. At least not that my boss is involved in. The idea is that eventually everyone will profit. Fred's working with him on a component to make a bigger deal of North Ashcot as an antique capital of the world.” He laughed. “I'm glad I'm just a regular employee who has to go on an occasional road trip. Someone else can worry about how businesses work together.”

“Some businesses and not others.”

“What's going on, Cassie?”

“Just wondering why all the secrecy if there's nothing illegal happening.” I thought about my trip to Knox Valley and the shunning I received when I made simple inquiries. “People are slinking around, not answering questions. It sure looks suspicious.”

“Understandable when you know about the last time Reggie proposed something like this. It happened just before I arrived in town, and apparently he tried to spread the news about his idea and it was a colossal failure. Vendors copping out, Main Street merchants protesting, customers not happy. I guess this time he decided to strategize first and come up with a more formal, businesslike plan.”

“One he wanted to keep tightly controlled, apparently.”

“Yup. And also to prevent having it be spun a negative
way and look bad for the vendors that are part of the sponsorship.”

“Like maybe that they don't care about their fellow merchants on Main Street? The ones who might be hurt by going elbow-to-elbow with people selling the same wares.”

“But business is business, I guess. I'm not that tuned in; it's one reason I never want to have my own place.” Quinn uttered a little gasp, then said, “Cassie.” As if he'd been talking in his sleep up to now and finally figured out what our conversation was about. “I should have known. Your feelings weren't hurt at all. You're digging for dirt on Reggie.” He grunted, half-annoyed, half-proud of me, I thought.

“Thanks, Quinn. You can go back to sleep now.”

I refilled my mug, searched out a snack from my kitchen, and returned to my living room. I sat quietly, absorbing the new information. Reggie was stacking the deck. He wanted his proposal to pass through the selectmen. But Quinn was right. That's how business is done, whether in a big city or a small town. It didn't mean that Reggie had to kill someone to get his way, and he certainly couldn't be afraid of blackmail or any exposure of his perfectly legal strategy.

In any case, I was glad I didn't have to be part of such wheeling and dealing, and I was glad my boyfriend didn't want any part of it, either. I couldn't blame him for letting his boss take the lead in business decisions.

My call to Quinn had been so satisfying that I allowed myself a nap, too.

*   *   *

Linda's call woke me up. I guessed that was what Sundays were for. Naps and phone calls.

We talked about her upcoming trip, which might begin as early as Thursday, for a really long weekend.

“We haven't heard much about your case, but someone's picture was on the news today as prime suspect.”

I briefed Linda on Jules Edwards and the evidence against him, the most incriminating being his flight from town and all his clients.

“No surprise it's a money guy,” she said.

“I'm sure there are some honest ones,” I said. “And it doesn't mean they're all killers.” I found myself defending Jules, pointing out how weak and maybe suspicious the red paint evidence was.

“Wait, I thought you said two minutes ago that you don't think the farmers' market guy is doing anything sketchy. Doesn't that more or less leave the accountant hanging out there? Who else could it be but a runaway embezzler?”

“There's still something not right.”

“What?”

“I don't know. Maybe nothing.”

“Probably nothing. I think you're just bored in that little town. Tell me you don't miss the string of bookstores and coffee shops around the Fenway. They still ask about you at Common Coffee. And when was the last time you saw a decent art exhibit? Or heard a live concert?”

I figured the Ashcot High Choral Society didn't count in Linda's book. “Let's talk about your weekend coming up.”

“Okay. Tell me again what people are wearing to the party?”

I did my best to explain one more time that Saturday's “party” was actually a parade followed by a community gathering with a quilt display and refreshments. People
would probably be wearing what they wore to do their post office errands every day. Except for the ones in Revolutionary War garb.

“Got it,” she said.

“Leave your little black dresses and clutch purses at home,” I added, in case she really didn't get it.

*   *   *

I was faced with dinner alone again, missing the nearly constant interaction I'd had with Sunni, the high-end takeout from Cliff (with accompanying nagging), and even being tailed by one of NAPD's finest.

Try as I might, I couldn't feel one hundred percent satisfied with the resolution of Daisy's murder. I felt I was betraying her by rejecting her accusations against Reggie Harris. He might be guilty of greed and self-serving business deals, but that wasn't the same as trying to turn a simple farmers' market into a front for illegal substances. Daisy was wrong about that, and I had to face it.

I knew I should also abandon any hope of resolving the niggling doubt I had about Jules's guilt, especially since Sunni had cut me off at the end of the investigation. Ross's hints had been enticing, but without a context, I was left hanging. A splotch of red paint? A notebook with a flowery cover? So what? It would have been different if I could have read the files and had a few complete sentences to work with. Some friend the chief of police was.

My phone rang and my screen lit up with the North Ashcot PD number. I looked around as if I might see Sunni swinging from my light fixture, or watching me through a tiny camera stuck in my pen holder.

I clicked the phone on. Would I have a dinner companion after all?

“We picked up Jules,” Sunni said.

“Wow,” I said, meaning “Wow” they'd picked him up, and “Wow” she was letting me know personally. “He was ready to cross the border near Montreal. New haircut, a different car, but it was Jules. You'll probably see it on the news in a few minutes.”