Murder Has a Sweet Tooth (25 page)

When I looked inside, I saw all the beautiful art glass on display at the bottom of the winding staircase had been smashed to smithereens.

And Beth’s body, broken and bleeding, in the middle of it all.

TYLER IS NOT THE WARM AND FUZZY TYPE. WHICH
means he wasn’t gentle about it when he braced a hand at the back of my neck and forced my head between my knees.

“Breathe,” he said. “It’s the only thing that’s going to get rid of the light-headed feeling.”

I wasn’t so sure I believed him, but it’s not like I had a lot of choice so I gave it a try. Except for the fact that my neck was killing me, after a minute or so, I did feel a little better.

At least a little better than I had since I scrambled for my phone and made a frantic call to McLean emergency services.

The paramedics had arrived in short order. So had the cops. Through it all and a haze of tears, I’d stood aside and kept out of the way, just like they told me to. I hadn’t even realized I was swaying on my feet and nauseous, too, until Tyler showed up out of nowhere, told me to sit down, and proceeded to make sure I didn’t throw up and spoil the pristine landscaping.

After a couple more minutes, the pressure of Tyler’s hand decreased and I dared to raise my head. I was just in time to see the paramedics wheel Beth out on a stretcher. There was a white sheet over her face.

My stomach swooped again and this time, I didn’t need Tyler to tell me what to do. I hung my head between my knees and tried to block out the clinking and clanking as the stretcher was loaded into the ambulance.

It wasn’t until the ambulance pulled out of the driveway that I picked up my head. “What are you doing here?” It was a stupid question at a time like that, but I wasn’t about to argue with my more sensible self. If I focused on facts, I could avoid thinking about everything I’d seen there in Beth’s foyer, how that beautiful ecru tile had been dotted with color. Some of it was bits and pieces of Michael’s art glass collection. More of it was blood. “How did you—”

“I just so happened to be having lunch with one of the guys I know on the McLean department, and I heard the call come in. I recognized Beth’s name, and the address. I told my buddy whatever happened here might have something to do with a case I was working on.”

“In other words, you lied.” In other circumstances, I might have given him a one-upmanship smile. This time, I didn’t even try. “Do you think it has something to do with Vickie’s death? It can’t be . . .” The word stuck in my throat. I cleared it away. “It can’t be murder, can it?”

Tyler glanced toward the house. “Too early to tell,” he said. “But I did hear a couple of the crime scene techs talking. There’s evidence of what might have been a struggle at the top of the steps.”

“Someone pushed her?” I closed my eyes, but that did nothing to erase the image that formed in my mind. I gulped down the sour taste in my mouth. “You think the two murders are related?”

“A little too coincidental if they’re not.”

“You thought Beth murdered Vickie.”

He sucked on his teeth, stalling before he admitted he was wrong. “It was a theory. I never said I knew it for certain.”

“But Beth couldn’t have been the murderer. Not if someone murdered her.”

“We’re getting way ahead of ourselves.” Tyler sat down on the porch steps next to me. The steps were wide and we were way off to the side, the better to keep to ourselves and not get in anyone’s way. “Last night, you said Beth was blackmailing Edward Monroe.”

I nodded. “She wanted her husband to get a promotion. And she wanted her son to play soccer, too. Edward’s the team coach, and Jeremy’s an awful soccer player. She said that if Edward didn’t let Jeremy play—”

Tyler held up a hand to stop me. “Are you saying she was blackmailing him about soccer? It’s that important?”

“To these people it is. It all is. Where they live and who they know and what their kids have accomplished. Or not accomplished. Do you think Edward could have killed Beth?”

“Can’t say. It’s way too early to tell.” He looked like he wished he could say more. “But I’ll let my friend on the force here know what’s been going on. I’ll tell him to check out Monroe’s alibi. And the whole blackmailing angle. I don’t suppose you have any proof that Beth was telling the truth about that?”

“Not a shred. She did say she mentioned it to Edward and he acted like he didn’t know what she was talking about. So she wrote him a note. She tucked it in a sympathy card she sent after Vickie’s death.” The look I gave him was hopeful. “I don’t suppose—”

“That he kept it? Nobody’s that stupid.” Tyler looked disappointed that it was true. He stood. “That doesn’t mean the local guys can’t check it out. In fact—”

He stopped midsentence when a car sped into the driveway. Its driver, Michael, slammed on the brakes, then got out and raced over to the nearest police officer.

“Someone called me at my club,” Michael stammered. “They said something was wrong. What happened? It’s not . . . one of the kids? Beth?”

A detective who was standing nearby took Michael by the arm and walked him over nearer to where we waited. They spoke quietly, but I knew what they were saying. I watched, my heart breaking, as the news registered. Michael’s face went ashen. His eyes glazed over. “No!” The word dissolved into an anguished cry. “It can’t be true,” he sobbed. And then he said something else, something I didn’t quite catch, but something that sounded a whole lot like—

I told myself not to get carried away. I remembered the whole mix-up about Alex and
dead
and
head
. I warned myself that same sort of thing might very well be what was happening here: I was hearing one thing and thinking it was something else. That had to be it. It was the only thing that made any sense. Still . . .

I know for certain that I saw Michael stare at the open front door of his house and all that smashed glass that lay just beyond. And I was just as sure I heard him mumble something, something that sounded a whole lot like “This wasn’t supposed to happen yet.”

REAL OR NOT, THE COMMENT SENT MY IMAGINA
TION into overdrive. I didn’t dare bug Michael about it that day. I mean, he’d just found out that his wife was dead. There didn’t seem to be much use in trying to talk to him, and it would have been cruel besides. I bided my time, and I did manage to catch up on my work at Bellywasher’s, but only because I went in on Sunday and stayed until every last check was paid and every last account was balanced.

That left me free to attend the calling hours for Beth on Monday.

Of course Celia and Glynis were there and of course they looked shell-shocked, as might be expected. Losing one friend is hard enough. Having two die and in such short succession . . . well, I’d barely known Beth, and I hadn’t known Vickie at all, and even I was bursting into tears at the drop of a hat. We hugged, and talked, and I made my way toward the tasteful urn displayed on a table and surrounded by photos and mementos. Since I didn’t want to cause a fuss, I made sure to stay clear of Edward. He was over in one corner, talking quietly to Scott. I scanned the room, looking for Chip, Glynis’s husband, and found him sitting in another corner by himself. He was weeping.

I wasn’t heartless enough to disturb his grief, so like the dozens of other people there before me, I waited in a long receiving line to pay my respects and extend my condolences to Michael. Unlike any of the others, I had an ulterior motive. After I told Michael how sorry I was and how much I was going to miss Beth (both true), I made my move.

“I don’t know if you remember, Michael, and I can certainly understand if you don’t. But I was the one who found Beth on Saturday. I stopped by, and I saw her through the front window. I’m the one who called 911.”

“Yes, of course.” Behind his Coke-bottle glasses, Michael blinked as if he was trying to replay the scene in his head and find where I fit in. “You were there. On the front porch when I arrived home. It never registered.”

“You had other things to think about.”

He nodded. “Maybe it’s just that I wasn’t all that surprised to see you. These days, you always seem to be around when bad things happen.”

It was hard to deny, even if it was a little hard to take. I swallowed down a reply that was a little too terse for the occasion. “I happened to be listening when the police talked to you,” I said, “and you said something curious. I’ve been wondering about it ever since, and I’ve just got to ask. When they told you Beth was dead, you said, ‘This wasn’t supposed to happen yet.’”

“Did I? I honestly can’t remember.” There was that blink again. Michael reminded me of an agitated owl. He shook his head as if to clear it and looked past me to the next person in line, dismissing me as easily as that.

Not to worry, I wasn’t about to be brushed off so quickly. I pretended to be oblivious and I kept my place. “It just seems so odd. I can only imagine what you must have been feeling. And I think at a time like that, I might say something like
oh, no
or
please, tell me it’s not true
. Even
this wasn’t supposed to happen
makes sense to me, because of course, it wasn’t. Beth was loved by her friends and her family. She’s going to be missed. What happened to her shouldn’t happen to anyone. But it’s that one little word. That
yet . . .
”

Michael blanched. I was pretty sure he was going to roll up in a ball and crumple to the floor until something behind me caught his eye. I turned to see that Edward Monroe was looking our way. When I turned again to Michael, he pulled back his shoulders and lifted his chin.

“Of course it wasn’t supposed to happen yet,” he snapped. “Beth and I were supposed to live a long life together. We were going to grow old together, retire together, watch our great-grandchildren grow up. You understand that, don’t you, Annie? It wasn’t supposed to happen
yet
.” He drew out the word so I had plenty of time to think about it. “No one’s supposed to die that young.”

“Of course.” What else could I say? With another smile tinged with just enough sympathy to be sincere but not too cloying, I backed away.

And headed straight for the door.

Did I believe Michael? Sure, everything he told me made sense, but that didn’t mean I was going to take it all at face value. This was my perfect opportunity not only to do a little digging, casewise, but to do what I’d gone to McLean on Saturday to do in the first place.

I left the funeral chapel and within a couple minutes, I was parked around the corner from Beth and Michael’s house, the better to make sure my car wasn’t spotted. I hurried up the driveway and peeked in the windows. There was no one around.

And remember, there was a hide-a-key.

The tantalizing thought flitted through my brain, teasing and tempting me. I glanced around the yard, trying to put myself in Beth’s place, and in Celia and Glynis’s, too, since they said they all kept keys hidden outside their homes. Under those fake rocks seemed a little too obvious. So did under the mat. (I know, because I looked and there was nothing there.) That left . . .