Moonlighting in Vermont (14 page)

Ten

It was a quiet ride to the barracks through swirling snow the next morning. I was trying to do the mature thing, but I really didn’t want to give Brooks the information.
Don’t be stupid,
I told myself.
If they find the balls, there might be a clue to the real murderer. I’ll be off the hook. On the other hand, there might not be any prints at all, and as I’m the only one who knew the balls were missing Brooks is going to throw me in the slammer.

“Earth to Bree,” Tom’s voice cut into my thoughts. “What’s going on in that head of yours? I can see wheels turning, and your ears are going to start smoking any minute now.”

“I just don’t think that talking to Lieutenant Brooks about this is going to help me any. Everything I say seems to incriminate me more. If it were up to me, we’d be going anywhere except the barracks. Shit, my stomach hurts. Do you think I could be getting an ulcer?”

“Oh, stop your whining.” He reached over and ruffled my hair. “You could keep this information to yourself, but then all kinds of bad things would happen. You could go to jail for withholding evidence. If you fall off that motorcycle and hit your head, there won’t be anyone to come forward and tell us what you know. Give me a couple of minutes, and I could come up with one or two more reasons why this is a good idea, but we’re here now, so you’ve got to suck it up and do the right thing.”

Tom took me in to see Brooks. He was sitting in his office, talking quietly into the phone. He looked up when Tom stopped in the doorway and motioned us to the chairs in front of his desk. I sat fidgeting while Brooks talked, and Tom relaxed into his chair and closed his eyes. I wondered if this was deceptive. He was the superior in the room, after all.

It only took a couple of minutes for me to tell Brooks what I knew. He nodded and thanked me and let me go. I heard him thanking Tom as I scooted out the door. I was down the hall and practically out the door before Tom caught up with me.

“You trying to avoid getting bitten by a snake? I’ve never seen you move so fast.”
“I don’t much fancy getting spending another night in your office.”
“Well, I can’t blame you for that. Listen, I’m going to get Steve to take you home. Okay? He’s at the end of a shift and headed that way anyway.”

* * * * *

Instead of heading back down the road, Steve turned off the cruiser’s engine and followed me into my house.
“Want some coffee?” I asked.
“Not in a hurry? Thought you’d be fussing to get to the paper.”
“No. Meg’s got a replacement for me. All I’m doing is looking over her shoulder today. Giving her the benefit of my superior experience.”
“You sound thrilled. Why don’t you just stay here instead?”
“Because Meg’s my best friend, and she wants me to be there.” I set my coffee down on top of the newspaper. “Might as well get going.”
“You didn’t let me get any coffee.”
“Missed your chance.” I shrugged myself into my coat and grabbed my bag.
A knot formed in my stomach on the way to the paper. I hadn’t recognized the name of the woman Meg hired to replace me, but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t remember me. I really didn’t want to teach someone to do my job, but I especially didn’t want to deal with someone who was sniggering behind my back.
I parked on the green and dragged my feet across the street. I bypassed the door that led up the stairs to the paper and headed into the café. I ordered a coffee and muffin to go from Muffin Man. I handed him some bills, and he looked me right in the eye and smiled. Not an Iknow-you’re-a-murderer smile. A hey-I-think-you’regreat-and-I’m-sorry-you’re-going-through-a-bunch-of-crap smile. I immediately felt better. I smiled back and headed up to the office. My feet were a lot happier now.
There was a pretty, young blond sitting at my desk. I had to remind myself that I’d quit. It wasn’t my desk anymore. I’d made that choice. It didn’t have anything to do with the girl who was sitting there. She focused her baby blues on me and smiled.
“Boy, am I glad you’re here. I’m muddling along, but I’m sure I could get things done faster with a little direction.” She stood and stuck out her hand. “I’m Deirdre,” she said. “I just moved into the area.”
“Bree.” I shook her hand. “It seems like you already know who I am.”
“Well, there’s a picture of you and Meg on the wall. It wasn’t hard to figure out.”
I’d forgotten about that photo. Tom had taken it the day Meg published the first
Royalton Star.
I smiled at Deirdre.
“It pays to be observant.” I walked over to stand behind her chair. “Let’s see what you’ve been up to. Where’s Meg, by the way?”
“She had to go home. Her youngest couldn’t find her Brownie outfit? Something like that.”
“Sounds about right. The paper is Meg’s baby, but it will always come second to her family.” I reached over Deirdre and clicked on the computer screen with the mouse. “What are you working on now?”
Deidre showed me the ads she’d been setting. I gave her a couple of tips, but there weren’t any serious problems.
“Have you done this before?”
“Yeah, I worked on a
Parents’ Monthly
in Florida. Same idea but one quarter of the deadlines. How do you decide where to place articles and ads in the
Royalton Star?”
I pulled a binder off the shelf beside the desk and flipped it open. “This will tell you what page to place the different features on. The paper is pretty much the same page count every week, unless there’s some wild news story in town. And sometimes we do a special insert. Like at Christmas, there’s a special section for events and merchants that gets slipped into the center. The Calendar always starts four pages from the end, even in the event of extra pages. All that information is in this binder. If you ever have a question about layout, and Meg’s not around, you can look it up in here.”
“Okay. I think I’ll keep that close.” Deirdre put the binder on the desk next to her computer. “What about ad placement? Is that in the binder too?”
I explained my method for placing ads and showed her where to look on the proof sheets for special placement. Meg had already set a number of articles and ads, so I walked Deirdre through the process of adding content to the paper. She was a quick study, and within the hour, I had my feet up on the bookcase. Deirdre asked the occasional question, but she could have managed without me.
Meg walked in about noon. She dropped her bag on the floor and began shaking snow out of her hair. “Snowing again. There’s a big commotion down in the café. I guess it got out that Gunnar Ericson is in the area. There’s a gaggle of middle-aged women all giggling and gossiping. They’re hoping he’ll show up in town.”
“If they knew Gunnar like I know Gunnar, they wouldn’t be so thrilled. He’s got a layer of slime. And he takes it for granted that he’ll get what he wants. I detest that in a guy.”
“I wouldn’t mind meeting him,” Deirdre piped in. “Even if he is nasty, it would be fun to have my picture taken with him. It might even make it into the tabloids or something. I’d like to be famous.”
“I don’t know.” I looked over at her. “If fame is such a great thing, why do so many celebrities pay Whispering Birches a huge amount of money to get away from it? I don’t think I’d survive a week with the press watching me.”
“You do tend to get in trouble more often than the average bear,” said Meg. “Most of us could probably manage to behave for a week!”
“Having people follow me around would drive me over the edge,” I said. “I already feel like everyone in this town knows every stupid thing I’ve ever done.”
“It would be worse if they knew you’d talked with Gunnar,” said Meg. “Hmm, this reeks of good blackmail material. Either you do what I want, or I tell the whole town you know Gunnar Ericson.”
“If you tell about Gunnar, I’ll tell about Scott.” I shot Meg the beady eyeball.
“Scott? Who’s Scott?” asked Deirdre.
“It’s an inside joke,” I said. “Sorry, it wasn’t very nice of me to say that in front of you. It’s old news, but I like to tease Meg with it when she’s getting on my nerves.”
“Oh. Okay.” Deirdre was disappointed, but Meg looked furious. She sent me an if-looks-could-kill glare and stomped over to her desk.
Deirdre had my job down cold, and my self-confidence had taken a beating, so I decided I’d go home. Meg wasn’t acknowledging my existence, so I waved a hand in her direction and headed down the stairs. The air outside was cold, and it felt as if it might snow again. I patted my car on the hood. I was grateful I had it back.
At the edge of my property, I noticed that there were large birds roosting in my trees. Slowing down to take a second look, I realized they were chickens—my chickens, almost certainly. I pulled into the drive and drove down to the chicken house. I gazed at the tracks around the coop. Among the chicken scratches were the unmistakable prints of fox, more than one fox, which wasn’t unusual.
I looked around for signs of kill, but there weren’t any. No blood in the snow anywhere. For chickens, my birds were pretty smart. They must have headed for the trees at the first scent of predator. Getting them out of the trees would be a different matter. I went into the barn and scooped some grain into a bucket. Back out at the chicken house I shouted “Chick, chick, chick!” while I tossed grain on the ground. Pretty soon, the bolder birds flew down from the trees and flapped along the ground toward me. I watched the chickens squabble over the feed. The chaos at my feet made me think of my life. My fingerprints were on Vera. All over the room where she was found. Of course they were. I had been in there a thousand times. Why wasn’t there anything to link anyone else to that room? Surely there were other fingerprints, other clues.
When I was satisfied that most of the chickens had returned, I put the grain bucket away and went to the house. The dogs were inside. They’d lain on their beds this morning when I left, and I’d taken that to mean that they didn’t want to go out today. They wanted out now and almost bowled me over as the door opened.
It was still early, and I wasn’t sure what I should do with myself. It had been a couple of years since I’d been home on a Tuesday. I decided laundry was probably in order and started sorting clothes. I had a bunch of clothes that were covered in mud, and I took them outside to shake them out over the edge of the porch.
The minute I was outside, the phone started to ring, so I dropped the basket on the porch floor and went back in to answer the phone.
“Bree?”
“You have a lot of nerve calling me, Jim.”
“I’ve been hearing rumors. I’m just calling to see if you’re okay.”
“Never been better. Thanks for asking.” I went to hang up the phone and heard him calling out.
“What is it, Jim? I’ve got work to do.”
“I miss you. And I’m sorry how everything has turned out.”
“I’ve got to go.” Before he could say any more, I hung up. “Bastard!” I stomped back outside to find that Ranger and Hank had dragged the clothes from the laundry basket into the yard. Ranger was tossing a sock into the air and catching it in his mouth. Hank was rolling on a pair of jeans. I swore at the dogs. Ranger dropped the sock into my hand and then looked at me hopefully. He thought I was going to play with him.
“No such luck, buddy.” I collected the rest of the laundry, dragging the jeans out from under Hank. He looked at me with his best hey-you’re-ruining-my-fun expression, and I carted the laundry back into the house. The mud could wait until some other time. I threw a load of un-muddy clothes into the washer and threw myself down on the couch.
I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want to spend the rest of the day watching TV. I didn’t want to work on one of the hundred chores that needed doing. I didn’t want to do anything. I closed my eyes and willed myself to sleep. My eyes popped open. Nope, couldn’t sleep.
I thought about the Christmas balls that had gone missing. Twelve days of Christmas, twelve solid glass ornaments the size of a softball. I called Tom at work.
“How many Christmas balls did you find when you searched the grounds at Whispering Birches?” I wondered if they’d found them all.
“I don’t know if they found them yet, Bree. I’m not sure Brooks has sent anyone to look for them. But I can find out, if you want.”
“Would you, please?” I asked, and we rang off. Damn that Brooks. He was so pig-headed he wouldn’t follow up a lead I gave him. And why couldn’t I leave well enough alone? Did I really think I was going to find anything out? I shook my head at my own stupidity.
After I finished feeding the animals, there was a message from Meg. The paper was finished, and did I want to come to dinner. Conflicting emotions ran through me. I was glad for Meg that the paper was done, but on the other hand, how had it gotten done so fast? Was the new typesetter Superwoman? I didn’t want her to be better at my job than I was.
I returned Meg’s call. “I thought you were mad at me.”
“I got over it. Do you want to come for dinner?”
“Sure.” I didn’t have any food in the house anyway.
I filled the day with laundry and target practice. If my dogs didn’t keep the foxes away, then I would. I fed my animals early, throwing a few extra carrots into Lucky’s bucket, and headed down the hill. I fought the feelings of inadequacy all the way to Meg’s. I swore to myself I wouldn’t say anything.
“Hey.” I walked into Meg’s kitchen. “How did you get the paper done so early? We almost never got the paper done before nine.”
“Well, Deirdre knows her stuff.” She smiled. “But I also worked straight through the weekend and late every night. Tom had to take over getting the kids fed and to bed. Rest assured, as good as she is, Deirdre will never take your place in my heart.”
“Humph. How long were you planning on dragging that out?”
“Way longer than I did, that’s for sure. But when I saw the look on your face, I took mercy on you. Just because I’m such a good friend.”
“A good friend doesn’t think of ways to torture people.” I smacked Meg on the arm.
“A good friend doesn’t get accused of murder and leave people in the lurch.”
“It’s not like I found that body on purpose. If I had it to do all over again, I would have stayed home sick that day.”
Meg laughed. “Yeah, I bet. Here, help me set the table.” She handed me a stack of plates.
I started placing the plates on the table and realized that there were too many. I went to put one away.
“We’re going to need that. Beau is eating with us tonight.” She shot me a look. I wondered what she knew. Did Beau tell Tom and Meg? Did they guess? I put a totally unconcerned look on my face.
“Oh? That’s nice.”
“You must think I’m totally blind.” She shot me a slitty-eyed look.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m not about to screw up my relationship with you and Tom over some boy. Besides, Beau is too young for me.”
“Oh, give me a break. What is he, a year and a half younger than you?”
“I am not seeing anyone exclusively. I’m operating under the assumption that all single men are scum, and all married men are out of bounds.” I stuck my tongue out at Meg. “So that means Beau is scum, unless he was to marry me. Which he can’t, because I’m not marrying any scummy single man.”
Meg laughed. “I’d hate to be inside that brain of yours. You are a mass of contradictions. Be nice to Beau today.”
“I’m always nice to Beau.” I doubted my smoke screen was working, but I wasn’t about to spill the beans, especially as having sex a couple of times didn’t exactly count as having a relationship. What was I going to say?
Hey, Tom, I’m shagging your brother.
I don’t think so.
“Hey, Meg. I’m sorry I messed things up yesterday.”
“Forget it. You were right. It’s my own fault. I should never have told you about Scott.”
I shot her a look. Was she serious?
Meg laughed. “Like I wouldn’t tell you everything.”
We finished setting the table, and Meg pulled a gigantic casserole dish out of the oven. I stepped over and sniffed.
“Enchilada casserole?”
Meg nodded.
“Pasta or tortillas?”
“Pasta on one end, tortillas on the other. That way, everyone is happy. Even you.”
“Is there ice cream?”
“Only if you eat your dinner.”
“Then I’m happy.”
“What are you happy about?” Tom wandered in from the other room.
“Ice cream,” I said.
“Oh, I thought it might be because Beau’s coming to dinner.”
“What is it with you two? I’m not involved with anyone at the moment. Jeez. What would be the point, when I’m about to be hauled off to jail?”
“Well, poor Beau’s going to be disappointed,” said Tom. “I’m pretty sure he was hoping for some preincarceration sex.”
“You lie.” I was hoping it was true.
“What does he lie about?” Beau came in through the mudroom. “Besides everything.”
“Bree is pretending…” Tom started.
“We are not discussing this!” I shouted Tom down. “This conversation ends right now, or I’m going home.”
“Okay, that’s it. If Bree goes, I go,” Beau said. Tom shot Meg an I-told-you-so look, and I rolled my eyes. Nothing about my life was private anymore.