Grounds for Murder (18 page)

‘You’re pouting,’ he said, touching my bottom lip. ‘You could hang a bucket on that lip.’

I shoved his hand away. ‘And then Sarah betrays me. I thought she was going to bail me out and, instead, after you get Levitt drunk and belligerent, Sarah calls him up to the stage.’

‘He was your keynote speaker after all.’

‘You know what I don’t understand?’ I continued. ‘I don’t understand how he got drunk so fast. First he’s not drinking, then he downs three glasses of wine in five minutes flat.

‘I’ll tell you one thing,’ I said, now on a roll. ‘George was dead-on right about something going on between Amy and Levitt. Did you see how she was fussing over him? I think she took him home.’

‘Well, he certainly was in no condition to drive,’ Pavlik said soberly. ‘Who’s George?’

‘The bartender. He told me he heard Levitt and LaRoche arguing on Thursday afternoon.’

‘Thursday afternoon?’ As if by magic, Pavlik had a notepad out.

Remind me not to say something probative during sex – if we ever got around to having it. I’d end up with paper cuts.

‘And they were arguing about Amy?’ Pavlik asked.

‘George said it sounded like LaRoche was warning Levitt to stay away from Amy. Levitt, in turn, was saying he couldn’t live without her.’

Pavlik paused in his writing. ‘Pretty theatrical stuff. You sure George the bartender didn’t make it up?’

‘I don’t think so,’ I said, picking up my wineglass and swishing it. ‘He was making a screwdriver when he said it.’

Pavlik tipped his head down to look at me and a lock of hair fell down over his forehead. ‘And the screwdriver means what?’

‘That he was working and distracted,’ I said. ‘He wasn’t sitting around making up stories, he was just telling me what he remembered.’

‘Right. One doesn’t mess with orange juice and vodka.’ Pavlik made another note. ‘So why would LaRoche care if anything was going on between Levitt and Amy?’

‘Well, Amy’s quite a bit younger than either Levitt or LaRoche,’ I said. ‘Maybe her boss was simply being protective.’

Pavlik and I looked at each other.

‘Nah,’ we said simultaneously. Caron had heard there was ‘friction’ between LaRoche and Amy. Little did she know how right she might be.

‘Wonder if his wife knew,’ Pavlik followed up.

‘And decided to kill him?’ I shook my head. ‘I don’t know. After talking to Janalee tonight, I don’t think she cared passionately enough about LaRoche to kill him, even if she did find out he was fooling around.

‘Torture him a little,’ I added, almost to myself. ‘But not kill him.’

‘Personal experience?’ Pavlik probed lightly.

‘Mine?’ I asked, startled.

‘Yes.’ Pavlik moved a little closer. ‘You’ve never told me much about your divorce.’

The last thing I wanted to do was go on a side-excursion through Ted-Ville, the part of my brain where I’d stuffed my ex. Five or six brain cells were all I was willing to spend on him at this point and – to my surprise – it was getting fewer every day.

‘The divorce was very amicable,’ I said, drawing myself up taller. ‘And yours?’ What’s sauce for the goose, and all that rot.

‘Completely amicable,’ Pavlik said with a grin.

‘I’m glad.’ I was lying through my teeth and hoping he was doing likewise.

‘OK, I’ll add possible love triangle to the list,’ Pavlik said, snapping his notebook shut. ‘God knows there seem to be enough people who wanted to kill LaRoche.’

‘Yet he seemed oblivious to it,’ I mused. ‘I don’t think he had any idea people didn’t like him.’

‘Might have made him an easy target then. He probably never suspected anyone would want to harm him.’

I thought of LaRoche, his ego and his idol, Sun Tzu. ‘Or dare to. And even if he did, I think he would assume he would prevail because he was smarter, braver and tougher than everyone else.’

‘Except one cheap trophy.’

I ignored the insult to ‘Slut in a cup’. He was right, in more ways than one.

Pavlik stood up. ‘By the way,’ he said, tucking his pen away, ‘I got a look at that tape from the back hallway.’

A chill went up my back. I was familiar enough with Pavlik to know this wasn’t an afterthought.

‘Is this our Columbo moment?’ I asked.

‘Please?’

‘You know, where the deceptively bumbling detective stops at the door and asks the “oh, by the way” question, thereby cutting, laser-like, to the heart of the matter?’

But Pavlik hadn’t gotten past the first part of my compound question. ‘Bumbling?’ He leaned down to kiss me. It was a very thorough kiss.

‘I said, “deceptively bumbling”,’ I murmured after he’d finished.

‘So why didn’t you tell me?’ he asked, getting serious. His eyes were dark again and he was towering over me, since I was still sitting on the couch. Quintessential Pavlik. I needed to regain equal footing. Retake the hill. Level the playing field. Whatever.

I patted the couch next to me and he sat back down. Victory.

‘I didn’t volunteer the information at first,’ I told him, ‘because I honestly had forgotten.’

‘You forgot that you visited the scene of the crime right around the time it was committed?’ He sounded skeptical and who could blame him?

‘I’d had drinks with Kate and Jerome, the camera operator,’ I said lamely.

‘I’d say you had one drink too many,’ Pavlik observed.

‘You’re right,’ I said, getting hot. And not in the good way. ‘But I just stopped in the competition room on my way out to check the trophies.’

‘What time was that?’

‘Just after midnight. The smaller trophies were on the table, bunched in the center around the . . .’

‘Murder weapon,’ Pavlik supplied.

‘Yeah, that.’

‘Was the table where you found it the next morning? Or don’t you remember?’

I ignored the jibe. ‘Yes, but one corner of the tablecloth was up. I smoothed it down.’

Pavlik frowned. ‘That was careless.’

‘I didn’t mean to destroy evidence,’ I said, nervously picking up my wine glass and setting it back down again.

‘No.’ Pavlik had the ubiquitous notebook out again. ‘It was careless of the murderer to leave the corner up.’

‘That’s true,’ I said, grateful for the reprieve. ‘The killer had to move the table to cover the body. That’s why the trophies were in the middle. So they wouldn’t fall off the table when he moved it.’ I looked at Pavlik. ‘So why would he go to all that trouble and leave without making sure the cloth was down?’

‘Maybe he – or she – didn’t leave.’

I put my hand to my mouth as I realized what he was driving at. ‘The killer was still there when I walked in?’

‘Don’t know.’ Pavlik shrugged. ‘Would you have noticed if he was?’

I gave him a dirty look. ‘Nice. But I like to think I would have felt some sort of . . . presence.’

‘That’s only in the movies,’ Pavlik said, standing up and tucking the notebook away for what I hoped was the last time. ‘In real life, we’re too busy with our own thoughts to pay much attention to other people, much less “presences”. The competition room is big and there are bleachers and dividers in it. The killer could have been hiding anywhere.’

It was true that I’d been so preoccupied with Kate’s accusation about the fire at Janalee’s Place, that there could have been a Tyrannosaurus rex in the room and I wouldn’t have noticed. I hadn’t noticed a body, for God’s sake. A body that must have been just inches from my feet.

I shivered. ‘It had just happened. If I interrupted the murderer, then it had just happened. That’s why.’ I was talking to myself.

‘Why what?’

Astonished at my own stupidity, I looked up at him. ‘Why I didn’t smell anything. No bowel or bladder smell, nothing.’

‘Hmm.’ Pavlik was probably remembering another body I’d stumbled across, where just the opposite was true. But that’s another story.

‘On the other hand,’ I continued, ‘I did notice something this morning. I just figured Davy had another stinky diaper from all the nuts and berries, or whatever Janalee feeds him.’

‘Maybe―’ Pavlik started to say, but I interrupted.

‘Maybe he wasn’t dead at all,’ I finished for him. I stood up and looked Pavlik in the eye. ‘Maybe LaRoche was still alive under that table.’

The sheriff shook his head. ‘Don’t beat yourself up about that, at least. His skull was crushed in. If he was alive, it wasn’t for long.’

‘If only I had looked under that table when I fixed the tablecloth,’ I said, rubbing my own forehead. ‘It would have been a natural thing to do.’

Pavlik took me by the shoulders. ‘And then maybe it would have been natural for the assailant to kill you, too.’

There was that.

‘I get it.’ I said. ‘OK.’

Pavlik let go and started putting on his jacket.

I trailed him to the door. ‘So when you saw me on that tape, did you seriously think I had murdered LaRoche?’ It seemed an important question to ask of someone you want a relationship with.

‘Tape?’ Pavlik said absently as he opened the door.

‘The tape from the camera outside the competition room,’ I said.

‘Don’t be silly.’ He kissed me hard on the lips. ‘Why would there be a camera in that hallway and nowhere else in the convention center?’ He winked at me and was gone.

Pavlik had reeled me in, just like he had Levitt Fredericks. And I hadn’t even put up much of a fight.

Maybe there were worse things than never having sex.

With the sheriff in the house, the thought of someone lurking behind the bleachers in the competition room last night was manageable.

Frank’s presence didn’t inspire quite that much confidence.

‘You would protect me, wouldn’t you boy?’ I asked, picking up what was left of my wine and slipping down on to the floor next to him.

Frank, sprawled out in front of the cold fireplace, raised his head, presumably to look at me. The look said ‘I’m here for you’ and ‘I can’t see a damn thing’ all rolled into one.

I sighed and flipped over on my back, head resting on Frank’s furry shoulder. The night was chilly damp and I thought about tossing a log on the fireplace. Finding a match to light the paper wrapper of my fake log seemed like too much work, though. ‘Go fetch a match, Frank.’

He didn’t answer.

‘Lazy,’ I chastised him. I thought about getting another glass of wine, but it would require opening a new bottle. ‘Don’t suppose you have a corkscrew under there, do you, boy?’ I asked, moving aside some fur.

I got a snore in response.

Eric should have gotten a St Bernard.

I was feeling a little batty with equal parts of wine, fear and regret. The thought that LaRoche was dying under the table while I was playing with the trophies was horrifying. Equally so was that the killer – likely someone I knew – could have been there watching me. Might still be watching me.

After all, how would he know if I’d seen anything that could incriminate him? And what would he do if he thought I had? I gave a shiver and Frank groaned.

Focus on what you know, Maggy, I told myself. Not on what you’re afraid someone else might know.

So what did I know?

I knew that LaRoche had been killed with a trophy, in the competition room by . . . Colonel Mustard.

I giggled.

No, seriously. The facts.

Presumably, LaRoche had been attacked just before I arrived just after midnight. So why was he there that late? In fact, why was he there at all?

‘I’m the one who should have been there, if anybody,’ I said out loud. ‘I was in charge of the competition.’

Frank didn’t respond, but a shiver ran down my spine. ‘No, really,’ I said, sitting up and giving Frank a little shake. ‘Maybe I was the one who was supposed to be killed?’

Frank lifted his head. He looked cynical.

‘True,’ I said, settling back down against him. ‘No one would expect me to return to the hall in the middle of the night.’ Certainly no one who knew me, at least.

That still didn’t explain why LaRoche was there.

To meet someone? Maybe Amy? I thought about the possibility. Ever since my husband Ted had drilled his dental hygienist, I was usually the first one to suspect hanky-panky. But even if something were going on between LaRoche and Amy, why would they meet in the convention center? Amy wasn’t married. They could have gone to her place.

So what other business could LaRoche have had in the competition room? What was there, after all, except for the stage and bleachers and the competitors’ supplies and equipment?

That stopped me. LaRoche was wildly competitive, fancying himself a strategist ala Sun Tzu. And, as Levitt had said, the HotWired owner believed in taking care of his own. In the context of the battle for best barista, ‘his own’ were Janalee and Amy.

Had LaRoche been in the hall trying to sabotage the other competitors?

If so, how would he have done it? The three sets of equipment had to be shared by the competitors. He would have no way of knowing which of the three set-ups Amy and Janalee would be assigned. Heck, I hadn’t even decided that.

So maybe the supplies?

Each competitor had a cart for their equipment, china and non-perishables and refrigerator space for dairy products and the like. LaRoche wouldn’t know whose was whose there either. I had a good idea, but I’d been much more intimately involved in the competition than LaRoche.

‘And what was he going to do anyway?’ I asked Frank. ‘Curdle their milk?’

Frank didn’t bother to answer.

He was right. The idea was a non-starter.

So, maybe LaRoche was lured to the competition room by someone. Someone who thought killing the guy with his own convention’s trophy was not only appropriate, but symbolic.

Someone like Levitt Fredericks.

There was certainly no love lost between Levitt and LaRoche. Levitt had made that pretty clear before he passed out at dinner. And a lovers’ triangle between Levitt, LaRoche and Amy added a whole new wrinkle.

So, Levitt had lured LaRoche there to kill him.

Or LaRoche had lured Levitt there, and Levitt had killed him in self-defense.

‘That would be my choice,’ I said out loud. ‘If that was how it played out, maybe everybody can still live happily ever after.’ Except for LaRoche, of course.