Cut to the Corpse (8 page)

His voice was a savage growl, and Tara recoiled from him even as her mother stepped forward, putting herself between them.

“Not now, Jake.” Chief Barker tightened his hold on him and forcibly pulled him into the other room. The door slammed shut.

Tara began to sob in earnest and Tiffany pulled her into her arms. “I don’t know what happened, Mother. How can I reassure him when I don’t know myself?”

“You didn’t do anything wrong,” Tiffany said as she pulled back to look at her daughter’s face. “I’m calling your father. He’ll know what to do.”

She fished her cell phone out of her purse and pressed a few buttons. She walked into the kitchenette to have what little privacy the bungalow afforded.

Tara’s red-rimmed eyes met Brenna’s. She was the picture of misery, and Brenna remembered when she had been in a similarly bad situation, the victim of a robbery in Boston. She crossed the room and took Tara’s hands in hers.

“It’s going to be all right,” she said. “Chief Barker is very good at what he does. He’ll find out what happened and catch whoever did this horrible thing.”

“What if it was me?” Tara’s voice was barely a whisper, but Brenna heard her and felt the cold fingers of dread creep up her spine.

“Move aside!” Mr. Montgomery ordered. “That’s my girl in there.”

“Daddy!” Tara rushed to the door and threw herself into her father’s arms.

Mr. Montgomery was tall and broad with thinning gray hair. He was wearing a golf shirt and khaki pants as if he had been called on his way to the links.

Mr. Montgomery held his daughter tight and glanced over her head at his wife. She met his gaze and in a gesture reminiscent of her daughter she bit her lip as if she didn’t know what to say.

“It’s okay, honey,” he said. “Daddy’s here. I’ll take care of everything.”

Tara stepped back and wiped her streaming eyes with the back of her hand.

“You can’t, Daddy,” she sobbed. “No one can.”

The door to the guest bedroom banged open and crashed against the wall. Jake stormed out with two patches of angry scarlet staining his cheeks. He stopped in front of Tara and glared at her.

“Jake . . .” She reached out a hand to him, but he shrugged it off and stomped to the door.

“I’m late for work,” he said to no one in particular.

DeFalco stepped aside as if he expected Jake would plow him over if he didn’t move fast enough.

Tara buried her face in her hands and sobbed while Mr. Montgomery blustered at the chief.

“What is the meaning of this?”

“This is a criminal investigation,” Chief Barker said.

“My daughter has done nothing wrong.”

“Then she has nothing to worry about,” Barker said.

“I am taking her out of this backwater and back to Boston where she belongs,” her father announced. “Tara, get your things. We’re leaving.”

Tara sobbed even louder, and her mother pulled her protectively against her.

“I’m afraid I can’t let you do that,” Chief Barker said. “There is a dead man in the next room and she was found holding the knife. I’m going to have to take her in and we’ll see what a judge has to say about her release.”

“I’m calling my attorney,” Mr. Montgomery said.

“That would be wise,” Chief Barker agreed. He nodded at Officer DeFalco, and Brenna realized he hadn’t been standing in the doorway to keep people out as much as he had been to keep Tara in.

“If you’ll go peacefully with Officer DeFalco, Miss Montgomery, we’ll forgo the handcuffs,” Chief Barker said.

Mr. and Mrs. Montgomery looked horrified as their baby girl was escorted outside to a waiting squad car.

“You haven’t heard the last from me, Barker,” Montgomery said.

“See you at the station,” the chief said.

He and Brenna watched as the Montgomerys hurried to their Lexus and fell in line behind the police car as it left the curb.

“What’s going to happen to her?” Brenna asked. She couldn’t help thinking of her own unfortunate experience with the Boston PD a few years before.

“It won’t be like what you went through,” Chief Barker said. He had an uncanny ability to read her mind. “She’s innocent until proven guilty. That said, it would be really helpful if she could remember what happened last night.”

“Maybe it will come to her when she gets over the shock,” Brenna suggested.

“Maybe,” he said. He sounded doubtful. “I hear Nate is out of town and you’re babysitting Hank.”

“Just for a few days,” she said.

“Where did he go?”

Brenna glanced at him. Surely, he didn’t think that Nate had anything to do with last night’s events. Just because he had been the prime suspect in the mayor’s murder a few months ago didn’t mean he was involved in this mess.

“I’m just curious,” he said. Again, giving Brenna the sense that he knew what she’d been thinking.

“He didn’t say,” she said. “Just that he’d be back in a few days.”

“Chief,” the medical examiner called from the back bedroom. “Can you come here?”

“I’ll let you go,” Brenna said quickly.

“If you think of anything else . . .” he began, and Brenna finished, “I’ll let you know.”

She watched as he walked toward the bedroom. She could see several crime scene technicians gathering samples from around the room and the shock hit her all over again. Even now, hours later, she had a hard time wrapping her brain around the fact that Clue Parker had been found dead in Tara’s bed.

 

“Then what happened?” Tenley asked.

Brenna and Tenley were decoupaging a cedar hope chest for Betty Cartwright. She lived in the senior housing complex on the edge of town and had her eye on an eligible bachelor there.

She had commissioned Brenna to make the chest for her in the belief that by being a proactive optimist and having a hope chest ready to be filled, she’d get her man.

The chest had begun as bare wood, so the process was from the bones out. Brenna had coated it with paint primer, sanded it, and painted it a deep burning yellow. Now she and Tenley were using a print of
The Kiss
by Gustav Klimt, which they had cut into small two-inch squares and were now gluing onto the chest like a mosaic, leaving groutlike lines of the yellow wood visible between the papers.

They were only halfway done, but Brenna was pleased with the outcome so far. Betty had been excited by the idea and Brenna hoped she was as happy with the finished result.

She used a brayer, a handheld rubber roller, to flatten what she had just glued on while Tenley prepped more of the paper squares.

“Well?” Tenley prodded.

“Oh, sorry,” Brenna said. She put the brayer aside and looked at her friend. “Let’s see. Jake stormed from the house, Tara got taken to the station by Officer DeFalco, her parents followed, and then Chief Barker and I talked about Nate.”

“Nate?” Tenley asked. “Why?”

“He wanted to know if I knew where he’d gone,” Brenna said.

“Surely, he doesn’t think he’s a suspect,” Tenley said.

“No, but I thought the same thing,” Brenna said. “He said he was just curious, but now that I think about it, I bet it has something to do with fishing.”

The two men were known for daylong fishing trips that always ended with stories of the big one that got away.

“Do you think Tara did it?” Tenley asked.

“No—I don’t know—no,” Brenna said.

“Choose one,” Tenley said.

“No,” Brenna said. “I saw her face when she saw him in her bed. She was shocked. If she’d killed him, surely she would have remembered it on some level.”

“You’d think,” Tenley agreed.

The front door opened and both women looked up. The Porter sisters had arrived and were striding across the room, trying to elbow each other out of the way in their desire to get to Brenna.

Tenley hurried forward to save her display of Durwin Rice’s
New Decoupage
book, which was hip-checked by Ella as she pushed past Marie.

“What do you know?” Ella demanded, sitting across the table from Brenna.

“What was Clue Parker doing in Tara Montgomery’s house? Was he really in her bed?” Marie asked as she plunked down next to her sister.

Brenna raised an eyebrow and studied the two sisters. When they were on a quest for information, they had all the finesse of a pair of truffle pigs. In fact, she was pretty sure she saw their nostrils flaring now. They were relentless.

“What can I tell you that you don’t already know?” she asked.

“Were they having an affair?” Ella asked.

“I don’t know,” Brenna said. Ella frowned.

“Do you think Jake killed Clue in a jealous rage?” Marie asked. Her eyes glowed as if she thought the idea romantic. Brenna frowned.

“I don’t know.”

“Well, what
do
you know?” they asked in unison.

“Clue was stabbed. He was found in Tara’s bed. She didn’t appear to remember anything,” she said. “And that’s all I know.”

“Humph,” Ella snorted, as if she thought Brenna was holding out on them.

“There, there, dear,” Marie said as she reached out and patted Brenna’s hand. “You’re just not as experienced as we are at fact gathering. It’s an art, you know.”

Tenley rejoined them and Brenna noticed that she quickly ducked her head as if to stifle a laugh.

“Well, I think she did it,” Ella declared. “She’s not from around here, and you know what those young women from Boston are like, loose morals and such. He probably threatened to tell Jake and she ran a knife right through his poor heart.”

“I’m sorry, but I really don’t see how her not being from around here makes her likely to commit murder,” Brenna said. She knew she sounded snippy, but sheesh, she wasn’t from around here either.

“Oh, now I’ve offended you,” Ella said. “Brenna, you know you’re different.”

“Different how?” she asked. “I don’t have loose morals? How do you know?”

“Well, you’re friends with Tenley,” Ella said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “She’s a daughter of the founding family. You can’t get a higher recommendation than that.”

“That’s the second time you’ve told me that,” Brenna said. She turned to face Tenley and said, “Could you please commit a lewd and lascivious act and ruin your reputation so that you are on the same level with the rest of us mortals?”

“Hmm. And give up my goddess status?” Tenley asked. “I don’t know.”

“It wouldn’t change a thing,” Marie said. “She’s still a Morse. Having Tenley as a friend does speak well for you, my dear.”

“Well, thank you, Tenley,” Brenna said.

“Don’t mention it,” Tenley said with a dismissive wave of her hand. Her mouth was quirked up in the corner and Brenna knew she was teasing.

“Oh, look at the time,” Marie declared with a glance at her watch. “We have to go, Sister. Kim Lebrowski is getting off her shift at the hospital and she went to school with Jake and Clue. Maybe she knows something.”

Ella perched the handles of her wicker purse on her elbow and said, “Good call. Let’s go. We’ll see you ladies at class tomorrow night.”

They left as abruptly as they arrived, leaving Brenna and Tenley staring after them.

“That reminds me,” Brenna said. “I need to prep tomorrow night’s project.”

“What were you thinking?” Tenley asked.

“I don’t know yet,” Brenna said. “But I think I’ll hold off on finishing the glass plates. I feel like we should wait until we know if Tara will be joining us again to finish hers.”

Tenley nodded in understanding. She had a delicate profile, much like Tara’s, and Brenna was struck by the similarity between the two women. Both were young and blond and very kind, both came from wealthy families; but where Tenley’s family was aloof and frequently unforgiving, Tara’s family rallied around her. Brenna couldn’t even imagine how the Morse family would react if Tenley were found in bed with her fiancé’s dead best friend. It wouldn’t be pretty.

Her mind flashed on Clue and she remembered the stiffness of his body at her touch, the gaping wound in his chest, the metallic smell of his blood. A shudder rippled through her. Who had hated him so much that they felt compelled to stab him right through the heart?

“I wish I knew more about Clue Parker,” she said.

“What?” Tenley asked. “Why?”

“Because I don’t think Tara did it,” she said. “I think it had to be someone who hated him or maybe feared him.”

“How does that have anything to do with you?” Tenley asked.

“You heard the Porter sisters. Just because Tara isn’t from around here, she’s suspect number one.”

“She was also found in bed with the dead guy,” Tenley pointed out. “It doesn’t look good.”

“I know that, but I also know what it’s like to be wrongly accused,” Brenna said. “And I just can’t bear to stand idly by and do nothing.”

“Chief Barker is going to be so unhappy about this,” Tenley said.

“Who said we have to tell him?” Brenna asked.

“Obviously, you have not lived here long enough,” Tenley said. “Believe me, he’ll find out.”

“So what if he does?” Brenna asked. “I was there this morning. I’m the one who found them. I’m telling you, Tara was shocked. I really don’t think she did it, and I’m going to help prove it.”

“How?”

“By talking to the people who knew Clue the best,” Brenna said. “His ex-girlfriends.”