Probable Paws (Mystic Notch Cozy Mystery Series Book 5) (8 page)

“
D
id
you find what you were looking for?” Pepper asked as we pulled out of the Hamilton driveway.

“No, but I discovered something disturbing.”

“What?”

“Felicity Bates approached Lisa Hamilton, wanting to buy things from the house—including books.”

“Oh boy, this can’t be good.”

“Tell me about it. Felicity is bad news.”

“No, not that.” Pepper nodded her chin toward the side-view mirror. “That.”

Striker’s car was coming up the road very quickly behind me.

Was he pulling me over? He didn’t have his lights on, but by the way he was advancing on me, it sure seemed that way. I pulled to the side of the road, and to my dismay he stopped behind me. I hesitated, watching him open his door.

Pepper shoved my arm. “Well, get out there and see what he wants.”

I got out, walking the length of the Jeep to meet him in the middle. My heart did a little two-step at the way his tall, broad-shouldered frame filled out his uniform. I’d seen him in it many times before, but for some reason he still had this effect on me. Guess I’m a sucker for a man in uniform. He looked a little tired, with a shadow of stubble that I itched to run my fingertips across.

“Please tell me you didn’t pull me over for speeding,” I said.

Striker grinned. “You? Never. I noticed you’re getting awfully friendly with the Hamiltons.”

“Not really. Pepper needed to pay her respects, and she wanted company. I haven’t talked to them other than the two times I came here.” I decided to keep Max’s visit to myself. After all, he did offer to help me and asked me not to tell the police about his suspicions. Okay, that in itself was kind of weird, but I hadn’t decided yet if he was a suspect or an ally, and I didn’t want to say a thing to Striker until I was sure.

“And the time you were skulking around over at the cottage,” Striker reminded me.

I wanted to come up with a pithy answer, but a swirling mist on my right distracted me. I blinked, hoping it was just something in my eye.

“Something wrong with your eye?”

“No.” My reply had a tinge of irritation, but it wasn’t aimed at Striker. As I’d feared, the swirling mist was Adelaide’s ghost. Why did she have to show up now? Couldn’t she have shown up when I was in the house and needed her guidance to find the book?

“The book’s not in the house, I don’t think,” Adelaide said. I raised a brow in her direction.

“Is there something over there?” Striker asked, a curious look on his face as he glanced in Adelaide’s direction. For a split second I feared he could see her, because his brows snapped together, but then his eyes jerked over to some spot behind my left shoulder.

I turned to look, but nothing was there. “Did you see something?” I asked.

“No.”

“Me either.”

“I had that book carefully hidden, but now all my things are rearranged. Someone has been going through them,” Adelaide continued.

“Lisa,” I blurted out.

Striker scrunched up his face. “Who?”

“Oh, nothing. Sorry.” I shifted my stance so that Adelaide was behind me then focused on Striker. “So did you want something?”

“I haven’t seen you in a while, and I wanted to catch up.” Striker waved his hand in the air as if waving something away, and I looked behind me again. What was wrong with him?

“You wanted to catch up out here in the middle of the road?” I asked. Now that I knew Adelaide had been murdered, I was positive Striker was investigating the case. Why wouldn’t he just tell me that? I pushed down a flutter of annoyance. He was always telling me not to butt in as if I were some bumbling idiot that didn’t know how to investigate a murder. He seemed to have forgotten that I was once a top-notch crime journalist in Massachusetts. “Or were you trying to figure out what I knew about Adelaide’s murder?”

Striker’s eyes snapped from the place beyond my shoulder to my face. “Murder? What are you talking about? I told you she wasn’t murdered.”

So he was going to play dumb. Well, two could play at that game. I wasn’t going to give him any of the information I’d gleaned. Not that it was much. “You just happened to see me driving here and pulled me over, then?”

Striker leaned forward and straightened my shirt collar, muddying my thoughts. “Yes. We haven’t seen each other in a while, and I meant to ask you to dinner, but Gus is short-handed, so I’ve been working a shift here in Mystic Notch as well as my regular shift over in Dixford Pass and…” He frowned at something to the left of me, and for a minute I was afraid he could see Adelaide, but her ghost had drifted out from behind me on the right and was now intent on distracting me.

“You shouldn’t be wasting time here with
your
guy. I need you to find that book so I can get together with
my
guy.” Her eyes turned dreamy. “And I feel that he’s close. Very close. But if you don’t find the book soon, I may lose him forever.”

I glanced over at her and noticed something interesting in the woods. I could just barely make it out through the misty shimmer of her body. At the very edge of the Hamilton property, the pine trees grew thick, but there appeared to be a clearing about twenty feet in. Inside the clearing were large slate stones. Gravestones. The Harrington family plot. And in the middle I could see an old vine-covered structure. The mausoleum. Would that be a good place to hide a book?

“So you wanna get together later tonight?” Striker asked.

I jerked my eyes back in his direction.

“You don’t have time. You have to find the book,” Adelaide said.

“Umm ... I do, but I have some work to catch up on.”

Disappointment flashed in his eyes. “Ok. I better get back to work, myself. Maybe later this week?”

The hopeful look in his eye twisted my heart. “Definitely later.”

I really wanted to get together sooner rather than later, but it was hard to concentrate with Adelaide floating around. She was right—I did have to find the book soon. Once I did, she could be reunited with her husband, and I could concentrate on my relationship with Striker. Not to mention that the book would then be safe from those who wanted to use it with bad intent.

* * *

I
made
it back to the bookstore with a tuna sub in my hand shortly after lunch. Pandora didn’t bother to greet me. She was probably mad I’d gone off to Hamiltons without her.

I pinched some tuna out of the sub and put it on a little plate for her as a peace offering. She sniffed the air then favored me with a haughty look before stretching her legs out in front of her and erupting in a sharp-toothed yawn. She then hopped out of her bed, trotted over to the tuna, and ate it without giving me another look.

With all my extracurricular activities at the Hamilton mansion, I’d gotten behind in cataloguing new books. I’d picked up several lots of old leather-bounds at a local estate sale, and they were waiting to be put into the system and displayed on the shelves. I hefted a big box onto the counter and got to work.

I wasn’t at it for more than ten minutes when the door burst open and Gus stormed in. She stopped short in front of the counter and stared at me, her hands on her hips. Her long blond hair was pulled up into a tight bun, the way she always wore it when she was on duty. I figured she thought it made her look like a tough sheriff, but it was kind of hard to look tough when you had a petite hourglass figure, even if it was stuffed into a plain brown sheriff uniform. Her face was pinched into an angry scowl.

“I’ve been getting complaints about you from the Hamilton family,” she said.

I feigned innocence. “You have?”

“Yes. They said you’ve been hanging around, asking questions. This isn’t a murder investigation, Willa. And even if it was, you wouldn’t be a part of it.”

I pressed my lips together and wondered just who had called the police on me. “Really? Who said I was hanging around? I’ve only been there twice. The other day I went to pay my respects for Gram, and this morning Pepper wanted company when she went to pay hers.”

“Never mind who called me. I want you to leave that family alone. Adelaide was not murdered.”

“Really? Then why did you bring in Striker?”

“What are you talking about? I didn’t bring in Striker, because there is no probable cause, therefore, no investigation. Why do you ask that?”

I decided to keep my mouth shut. I wasn’t sure why Gus would be lying to me about Adelaide’s murder. It didn’t make much sense, as word of her investigation was sure to get out on the Mystic Notch grapevine sooner or later. She and Striker had never purposely kept the fact that they were investigating a murder from me before. Odd that they would hide it now, but if she was going to be that way, I wouldn’t volunteer anything either.

“I’m sorry there was a misunderstanding with the Hamiltons. It won’t happen again,” I said to appease her.

“It better not—” Gus’s phone chirped, and her eyes snapped down to her belt, where the phone was secured. Her brow creased slightly. “Gertie Sloan? I better get this.”

She snapped the phone off her belt and turned her back to me as if she wanted privacy. A polite person would’ve gone on with their work, trying not to eavesdrop, but I wasn’t that polite. Gertie was the county medical examiner, and if she was calling Gus, I knew it had to be something good. I leaned forward, tilting my head so as to best hear the conversation.

“Excessive amounts of opiates?” Gus said. “How did you even…”

“But there was no autopsy on Adel—” Gus bit off her words and glanced back in my direction. I jerked my head down at the paperwork, hoping she wouldn’t notice I had been eavesdropping. She stepped farther away and continued talking. “On her. So how did you find out what was in her bloodstream?”

“From Blakes … for the cause of death… Oh, I see. Well, that is unusual and disturbing.”

Another glance back at me while she listened to Gertie on the other end.

“Right. Too bad she’s already been buried. Thanks for letting me know. Yes, I know, probable cause and all that, but let’s hope it doesn’t come to exhumation.” She snapped the phone shut and whirled around to face me. “Were you listening?”

“No, not me. I was cataloguing books.” I pointed to the stack of books.

“Good. You can forget about hearing any of that. It had nothing to do with you.” She turned and strode to the door, ripping it open then turning back to me. “And stay away from the Hamiltons.”

I watched her leave, wondering what exactly the call had been about. From what I could gather, somebody’s blood had too many opiates in it. Opiates could knock someone out and render them unconscious. And why would someone want to render someone else unconscious? One reason could be so they could easily kill them in their bed and make it look as if they died in their sleep.

If my guess was correct, that call had been about Adelaide Hamilton. But Gus’s surprise had been obvious. She hadn’t known about any foul play before Gertie’s call. But if that were true, then why had Striker
already
been investigating the case?

* * *

E
ddie Striker stared
down at the phone in his hand. Adelaide Hamilton had been murdered? He had a hard time believing it, but the information Gus had just given him left little question. As part of a new state initiative to gather information on infections that were now so prevalent in the elderly, the funeral director had sent a sample of Adelaide’s blood off to be inspected. Since there had been no sign of foul play, the lab had taken their time, and Adelaide’s memorial service had gone on as planned.

Adelaide didn’t have C-diff or any of the other dreaded infections, but the test revealed her blood had a high amount of opiates. Okay, not so suspicious considering she had cancer, but Gus had verified with her doctor that the cancer was in remission, and though he’d been refilling her prescriptions, Adelaide wasn’t in pain and not taking many pain pills, if any.

Upon hearing this news, the funeral director mentioned something disturbing to Gus. He’d noticed bruises on the side of Adelaide’s mouth. Broken blood vessels in her eyes. All signs of being suffocated. However, he had assumed she’d been in the last throes of cancer. He’d seen the bodies of many cancer victims, and they were in much worse states, so he didn’t think much about it when he’d prepared her.