Sucker Punch (12 page)

After Dylan left, I climbed into a hot shower and let the water wash away the scent of death. I stood there until the water ran cold, then slipped into a pair of sweats and a T-shirt and climbed under the covers of my warm bed. I curled up with Max on my feet and waited for sleep to carry me away. But every time I closed my eyes, I saw Laurence’s lifeless body, and each time the image floated through my mind, I jerked awake.

More than anything, I wanted to call Jawarski and talk about the case with him. Nate had seemed unusually reasonable, but I still had a hard time trusting him. Besides, I knew what Jawarski would say if I did call him. He might be dating me, but he was loyal to his brothers on the force. Nate would have to pull a major screwup for Jawarski to stop defending him.

And I had to think about Jawarski’s kids. The time he spent with them was so rare and precious, I didn’t want to intrude.

When my alarm went off the next morning, I was still exhausted. Dragging myself out of bed, I dumped food into Max’s dish and hauled myself into the shower again, hoping that the water would wake me up.

I was just stumbling out of the shower when my phone started to ring. Nobody I know calls to talk at six thirty in the morning, so a lump of dread formed in my stomach as I hurried to answer. It doubled in size when I saw “Silver River Inn” on my caller ID screen.

“The police were just here,” Dylan shrilled when I answered. “They took Richie down to the station.”

My stomach tried to turn over, but the rock-solid ball of apprehension wouldn’t let it. “Did they arrest him, or did they just take him in for questioning?”

“I don’t know. How would I know that?” The questions came rapid-fire, a sign of panic. “They came while I was in the kitchen and took him away right in front of our guests. I couldn’t even go with him.”

Poor Richie. Poor
Dylan
. At least Richie had some idea what was going on. “Did they read him his rights?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think so.”

“Then they probably didn’t arrest him,” I said. “Chances are they’re just asking him more questions.”

“Why couldn’t they talk to him here? They did last night.”

I was asking myself the same thing, but I did my best to sound calm and reassuring. Hysteria wouldn’t make anything better. “I don’t know, Dylan. Just try to be calm and take care of your guests. That’s the best thing you can do for Richie right now. I’m sure you’ll hear something soon.”

“I hope so.” I heard someone talking in the background and Dylan covered the phone to muffle their conversation. When he came back to me, his voice was low and hushed. “I don’t know what I’ll do if they arrest him, Abby. It’s not as if we can afford an attorney.”

“It probably won’t come to that,” I said, ignoring the twinge of warning as I had last night. “And if by some odd chance it does, Richie can see if he qualifies for court-appointed counsel.” I didn’t add that the chances of that were probably slim. Not that many people can meet the narrow guidelines involved, which is a good thing if you’re a member of the public whose pocket is being plundered to pay for someone’s defense. Not such a good thing if you’re in desperate need of an attorney and living on an overextended budget.

“Try not to worry,” I said, even though we both knew that Dylan would worry himself sick. “Let me know when you hear from him.”

The news left me chilled, so after we hung up I piled on a few warm layers and clipped Max to his leash. Maybe a brisk morning walk in subzero temperatures would warm me up.

The weather seemed a little more moderate this morning than it had last night, which lightened my mood a bit. With any luck some of the dirty mounds of snow that had been piled up around town for the past two weeks would melt.

Max and I set off, deliberately walking away from the Playhouse and thoughts of death. I tried to keep my mind on other things. The recipe for the Marshmallow Caramel Pillows I’d be making later that morning. My relationship with Jawarski, and whether or not I’d be able to move past my commitment phobias. How to convince Karen that the hearts hanging all over Divinity were as hideous as I thought they were. Important things. Things I stood a chance of doing something about.

Unfortunately, I was also wondering about who else might have been in the theater when Laurence Nichols died, and whether Richie would be able to convince Nate that he was innocent. I wondered about Colleen Brannigan’s husband, and what he’d been doing when the lethal spotlight fell from the fly system. I wondered if Nate knew about Doyle Brannigan’s jealousy, and whether he planned to ask everyone involved in the production where they’d been when Laurence died. And I told myself over and over that I could trust Nate Svboda to conduct the investigation. He was a good cop. Jawarski believed in him, didn’t he? So I should, too. I just wished I could make myself believe it.

Max and I walked along Prospector Street, past Rachel’s shop, Candlewyck, and Iris Quinn’s Once Upon a Crime. I was so busy trying to find answers to the questions dancing in my head, I barely paid attention to traffic when I crossed the street.

Much as I hated to admit it, I hadn’t told Nate everything I knew when he questioned me last night. In fact, I’d told him very little, really. Out of loyalty to Colleen, I hadn’t mentioned her husband’s suspicions about her relationship with Laurence. I’d also failed to mention the argument I’d overheard between Vonetta and Laurence the night of the meeting. I’d planned to tell him about both if the lab verified that the safety cable had actually been cut, but Dylan’s late-night visit had convinced me to bump up my timetable. I hated casting suspicion on anyone, but I hated knowing that the police were focusing on Richie even more.

I don’t know how long I’d been walking when the cold air finally bit through the layers of clothing I’d piled on and pulled me back to reality. We’d wandered several blocks from home, and as I got my bearings, I realized Max and I were standing across the street from the Wagon Wheel family restaurant, which had been one of my dad’s favorite places to grab a bite when Wyatt and I were kids.

Back then, life wasn’t like it is now—mothers rarely worked outside the home, and eating out had been a special occasion. A trip to the Wagon Wheel meant Sunday clothes and best behavior for my brother and me. We’d both hated wearing our Sunday best, but we’d looked forward to those rare treats with such anticipation, we’d have done anything our parents asked. For months before Mom’s birthday and Mother’s Day, we’d think about what was coming, and once in a blue moon Dad would get a hankering he just couldn’t ignore, and we’d come to town for a spontaneous dinner.

I hadn’t eaten at the Wagon Wheel since I moved back to Paradise. The years in Sacramento had dulled my appetite for greasy food. But I’d missed dinner the night before and suddenly nothing sounded better than the Wheel’s all-American breakfast, eggs over easy cooked in bacon grease, and white toast slathered with butter.

As long as I shared my leftovers with him later, Max wouldn’t mind waiting, so after a slow-moving truck passed by, we jogged across the street to the restaurant. I made Max comfortable in the vestibule and let myself inside. The aromas of bacon, sausage, and coffee filled my senses as I walked through the door, and my stomach growled with anticipation.

A harried-looking waitress poured coffee for a couple of guys seated at the counter, then glanced at me with a weary smile. “Sit anywhere, hon. I’ll bring you a menu in just a sec.”

I pondered my breakfast choices as I looked around the long, narrow dining area for a place to sit. Ham and eggs or chicken-fried steak and gravy? I couldn’t make up my mind. But when I saw two people I recognized sitting together at the far end of the room, all thoughts of food flew right out of my head.

Nate Svboda sat with his back to me, but I’d have known him anywhere. Across the table, Doyle Brannigan mopped up egg yolk with a piece of toast and laughed at something Nate said. I know it seems unreasonable, but seeing Doyle sitting there, looking as if he didn’t have a care in the world, made me angry. If anyone in Paradise had a motive for wanting Laurence Nichols out of the way, it was Doyle Brannigan. So why did he get to enjoy breakfast with his friendly neighborhood police detective while poor Richie agonized over his fate?

My heart slammed against my rib cage, and I backed up a couple of steps, hoping they wouldn’t notice me. I could almost hear Jawarski telling me not to jump to conclusions, but this conclusion didn’t require much of a leap.

It was pretty obvious that Nate and Doyle were friends, and I knew how the good ol’ boys network functioned. My dad had been a card-carrying member for years. Doyle could have walked down the street holding the murder weapon in plain sight, and Nate would have just come up with a way to excuse him.

My mind raced as I backed out of the door and unclipped Max’s leash. “Sorry, boy,” I said as I turned for home. “No bacon for you this morning.”

I’d be beating my head against a brick wall if I tried to convince Nate to check out what Doyle was doing last night. But
somebody
had to make sure he hadn’t been crawling around the upper levels of the theater with a knife, cutting cables. I stepped off the curb and crossed the street, tossing a silent apology to Jawarski into the Universe. I knew how much he’d worried about me in the past, and I wouldn’t have gotten involved this time if he’d been here to investigate.

That’s the honest truth.

But Richie is a friend, and the odds were seriously stacked against him. Sure, Jawarski would be back eventually, but Nate and the boys could do a helluva lot of damage in the meantime. I wouldn’t get
involved
, I promised myself. I’d just ask a few questions. See if I could figure out what Doyle Brannigan had been doing last night. Make sure that if Nate left Doyle walking around free as a bird while he kept Richie boxed up in an interrogation room, there was a good reason for the difference in the way they were being treated. That’s all.

And Nate had better hope he hadn’t overlooked something. Because if he had, there would be hell to pay.

“I can’t believe it. Laurence Nichols? Dead? Inside
our
theater?” Karen stopped polishing the glass container in her hand and shook her head in amazement. “Do you know what this is going to mean?”

“Yeah,” I said. “It means that Richie Bellieu is considered a ‘person of interest,’ and it means that we’re going to have to deal with a bunch of reporters and rotten publicity that nobody needs.” In the time it had taken me to walk from the Wagon Wheel to Divinity, I’d gone from grimly determined to furious.

While I put a pot of Chocolate Mudslide on the coffee-maker, I’d given Karen and Liberty a brief rundown of the mess at the Playhouse, leaving out almost nothing except the part where, less than twenty-four hours before Laurence died, Vonetta had threatened him with harm if he didn’t get the hell out of her theater. I just couldn’t picture Vonetta climbing around in the fly system and sawing at safety cables with a knife. If she’d wanted to kill him, she’d have been more straightforward. Besides, the first order of business was satisfying my curiosity about Doyle Brannigan.

Liberty must have found some hidden square inch of the shop she hadn’t decorated because she was carefully attaching ribbon streamers to yet another stack of hearts. “People are going to come from all over the place to see where he died. Don’t you think that’s kind of creepy?”

I rubbed my neck, trying to get rid of the knots of tension that had started forming as I walked through town. I hated thinking about the reporters who’d try to interview Richie and Dylan, and about the negative publicity all of this would mean for the inn. And not just the inn, either. The Playhouse certainly wouldn’t benefit from the attention, and neither would Vonetta. But short of locking away the entire cast and crew until the reporters disappeared, I couldn’t see any way to avoid them.