Vanilla Vices (10 page)

“Holding back information in a criminal investigation is obstruction of justice,” she said.

“Only if we know that it’s evidence,” I said.

“Maybe you should call your lawyer back and discuss that with her,” Inspector Black said as she held out her hand. “The keys, please.”

I had no choice. As I started to hand them to her, I thought about “accidentally” dropping them so she’d at least have to bend over to pick them up, but in the end, I decided to take the high road and just do as she’d asked.

The state police inspector took them without a thank you, locked the doors, and then headed for her car.

Grace and I stood right where we were. “You should have just thrown those keys into the woods,” Grace said.

“I did think about dropping them,” I said, “but I like your idea better.”

“Save it for the next time,” Grace said with a smile. “Are you ready to get out of here?”

“We might as well,” I said. “I don’t think there’s a chance we’re going to be allowed back inside for a while.”

“Maybe we won’t need to be,” Grace said with a cryptic smile.

“What do you mean?” I asked her as the inspector returned after getting something from her car.

“Later,” Grace said as Inspector Black stretched crime-scene tape across the door. For good measure, she also put an official seal across both jambs, barring entry. It wouldn’t stop someone determined to break the law, but for me, it might as well have been closed with iron bars and a moat of fire.

Chapter 11

“M
s. Hart, you and Ms.
Gauge need to let me do my job,” the inspector said after she finished sealing the place up.

“I don’t see how you can possibly claim that we’ve done anything but that,” I said. “Frankly, I’m not thrilled with your tone of voice. Like two good citizens, we called you the moment we found evidence we thought might be helpful to your investigation.”

“I apologize if I’ve offended you,” she said. Her inflection showed that she was as sincere as I’d been, meaning not at all.

“Of course. Now, if you’ll excuse us, we have places we need to be,” I said.

“You’re excused,” she replied.

As we walked back to my Jeep, Grace whispered, “Don’t say it, Suzanne.”

“Say what?”

“Whatever it is you’re thinking right now,” she answered.

I decided that Grace was probably right, though it was odd having her rein me in instead of urging me on. Once were back in the Jeep and driving away, I said, “The problem is, I don’t know where to go now. I’d planned on spending the rest of the afternoon and most of tonight at Aunt Teeks, but it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen now.”

“Do you honestly think there are any more undiscovered clues there?” she asked me.

“We’ll never know now, will we?”

“Pull over into that empty spot,” Grace said as she directed me to an open space along the road.

“Why? Do you want to discuss something with me? Is that what you were smiling so oddly about back there?”

“I need to show you something,” Grace replied.

“I’m not in the mood for games. If you have something I need to see, then just show me.”

“Just pull over. Do I need to remind you that I can be just as stubborn as you are?” Grace asked.

I knew that if it wasn’t a draw, it was still too close to call. The only reason I’d been arguing with her about parking in the first place was that our confrontation with Inspector Black had left me with a bad taste in my mouth. I hated being told what I could and could not do, especially by someone who had the authority to back the order up.

I pulled into the spot Grace had pointed out and then went so far as to turn off the ignition. As I turned toward her, I said, “There, you have my undivided attention. Now, what’s so important?”

She held out her phone and showed it to me with a gleam of triumph in her eyes.

I looked and saw that it was her home screen, a picture of a white sandy beach with deep-blue water dancing along its edge.

“That’s cool.”

“What? It’s not supposed to be cool,” she said as she glanced at her screen. “Oh, I didn’t select it yet.” She did something with her phone, and then she showed it to me again.

“What do we have now, snow on the mountaintops?” I asked her. Then I looked at the picture.

The beach was gone, and there was no mountain in sight, adorned with snow or otherwise.

But what was there made me take a quick breath before I spoke again.

It was a photo of a photo, ironically enough. I was sure that a great many teenagers wouldn’t recognize the original product, having taken pictures with their phones all of their lives, but this was an actual Kodak moment, a print that someone had gone to the trouble of having developed. Only it wasn’t an entire photo but one that had been raggedly, perhaps angrily, torn in half. Dan, not that much different than the man I’d recently sold my entire stock of vanilla donuts to, was in the frame. The background looked familiar, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. Fall leaves surrounded him, and one tree in particular stood out. Could the photo have been taken that recently, or was it from last year or even the year before? The thing that really captured my attention, though, was the sleeve of the arm still in the photo on Dan’s right side. It was an odd pattern, and I couldn’t tell from Grace’s image if it belonged to a man or a woman.

“What do you think?” Grace asked me.

“It might be a clue.”

“Then again, it might not,” she said, letting her enthusiasm dampen a little. “I was so excited about finding it that I couldn’t wait to show it to you.”

“Where was it?” I asked.

“Tucked in the front pocket of one of Dan’s shirts. Either the shirt was brand new, or he never wore it much. I’m guessing it was new. That means that this happened fairly recently.”

“The photo or the tear?”

Grace frowned a moment before she spoke. “I never even considered that possibility. So what you’re saying is that this might be old news.”

“No, I think you’re on the right track,” I said. “If he had this in his shirt pocket, I’d say that he tore it recently. Does that look like an angry tear to you?”

Grace studied the picture. “I’m not exactly sure what an angry tear would look like and how it would differentiate from a happy one. A tear is a tear, isn’t it?”

“I suppose so, but my point is that if he wanted to excise the other person from the shot calmly, wouldn’t he use scissors? Tearing the other person out of the shot is kind of symbolic, isn’t it?”

“I suppose so,” Grace replied after giving it a moment’s thought. “Who exactly does that arm belong to, though?”

“I have no idea. Does that background look familiar to you?”

“I’m not sure. It looks kind of like a park, doesn’t it?”

“I suppose so, but it doesn’t look like ours.”

“Come on, Suzanne. Are you implying that you know every tree in our park? I’ve lived here all of my life, too, and while there are a few trees that have distinguishing characteristics, this isn’t one of them, at least not to me.”

“No, it’s not like I’ve named them all or anything. It just doesn’t look familiar to me. I could be wrong, though. It might help if I saw the actual photograph fragment. I’m guessing that you left it behind, since you showed me the photo of it on your phone.”

“After the lecture we got for even being there, I was afraid that the inspector was going to strip-search us on our way out.”

“Grace, tell me the truth.”

“Okay. I figured a photo of the picture would be enough. I felt a little uneasy about taking what might be real evidence from the crime scene. There are some lines that even I won’t cross,” she added with a grin.

“Admit it. You’re just a good citizen at heart, aren’t you?” I asked her with a grin.

“What can I say? It’s a character flaw of mine. If it’s any consolation, I think you’ve rubbed off on me. I can’t ever remember being this ethical before we started crime solving together.”

“I’ll take the heat for it, then,” I said. “That was good work finding it.”

“But where does it leave us? We have an angry note from someone and a torn photograph. It’s not much to go on, is it?”

“We’ve had less in the past,” I reminded her.

“Don’t forget, we’ve had more, too,” she replied.

“We might not be able to get back into Aunt Teeks anytime soon, but we still have suspects we can interview,” I said. “I’m especially eager to speak with Jeffrey Frost again.”

“Why is that?”

I suddenly realized that in all of the excitement, I’d failed to tell Grace about the developer’s visit to the junk shop. “He came by while you were upstairs,” I said.

“You’re kidding. What did he want?”

“He asked if he could buy the land, the shop, and everything in it.”

“We already knew that, though, didn’t we?” Grace asked.

“You didn’t see him. I kept forcing his hand to raise his offer, and he barely even pushed back. Grace, he wants that place pretty badly, and I have a feeling that he’d do just about anything to get it.”

“Like commit murder?”

“Maybe. If Dan was so set on not selling out, maybe Frost decided he’d take his chances with whoever inherited the place.”

“Meaning you,” Grace said. “Does that put you in danger?”

“No more than I was already in,” I said. “While we’re negotiating, he has no reason to get rid of me.”

“Are you actually considering selling it to him? Suzanne, you can’t do that. What if he killed Dan, just like you said?”

“First off, I’m not sure I can do anything until the murder has been solved, and second, I’m entertaining his offer in order to find out more about just how strong his motivation is. No worries, Grace.”

“We’re trying to solve a murder with a hostile law enforcement officer breathing down our necks and watching every step we take. Why would I worry? How did you leave things with Jeffrey Frost?”

“I told him that we’d talk again later. I have to say, I was pretty happy that Inspector Black showed up when she did. The first thing she did was run him off, which suited my plans perfectly.”

“The rest of her visit didn’t go so well for us, though, did it?”

“I don’t know about that. While she’s busy digging through Dan’s shop, we can figure out our next move.” I was about to say something else when my phone rang. It was my mother.

“Hey, Momma,” I said. “What’s up?”

“A great many things, Suzanne. What exactly are you and Grace up to?”

“Why do we have to be up to anything?” I asked. I was a grown woman, twice married and once divorced, a small businesswoman who ran a moderately successful donut shop, so why was it that a pointed question from my mother still made me feel like an unsure teenager again?

“Mostly because I know the two of you, and also, I heard that Dan Billingham named you as executrix of his estate.”

“That sounds much grander than it actually is,” I said.

“Even so, I can’t imagine the circumstances that you
wouldn’t
be trying to find his killer. Jake has been removed from the case, hasn’t he?”

“How do you happen to know so much about it?” I asked her. “Have you been asking around about me?”

“I don’t have to. Even though Phillip and I were out of town for most of the day, the moment we got back, for some reason folks felt the need to make us aware of your doings, whether I wanted to know about them or not,” she said. “Suzanne, don’t get in this over your head.”

“Momma, you should know better than anyone else that’s where I spend most of my life.”

“Just be careful, and remember, if you need us for anything, Phillip and I are just a phone call away.”

“Thanks. I appreciate that. I love you.”

“As I do you, sweet child,” Momma said, and then we hung up.

Grace was smiling at me when I turned back to her. “It must be nice.”

“What’s that, having an overprotective mother who lives in constant fear that her only child is about to do something defying common sense?”

“That’s one way of putting it. She cares about you, Suzanne.”

“She cares about you, too,” I said.

“I know that, but she’s your mother. There’s a bond there that can’t be touched by anything else.”

“Sometimes it gets a little tight,” I replied.

“Deep down, you know you wouldn’t have it any other way.”

“That’s probably true, but don’t ever tell her that I said that. I don’t want it to go to her head.”

“Your secret, if you can call it that, is safe with me. So, what should we do now?”

“I think we need to speak with our list of suspects again,” I said.

“So soon? Do we really have enough for more conversations with them?”

“We have the note and the photograph,” I said. “Let’s show them both to our suspects and see how they react. We might be able to startle one of them, and they could tell us something we need to know, even if they do it inadvertently.”

“That sounds good to me. Where should we start?”

“Jeffrey Frost thinks I’m considering his offer. Why don’t we go see him and surprise him with our discoveries?”

“Let’s go.”

Chapter 12

F
ortunately, the builder was in
his office when we walked in. He was discussing something with a shapely blonde out front, and she spoke up before we had a chance to. “May I help you? I’m afraid Mr. Frost won’t be able to see you without an appointment.”

“It’s okay, Selena.” His secretary frowned for a moment as he offered me his hand. “Suzanne, I’m glad you came by. Are you ready to accept my offer? You won’t get a better one.”

“Actually, we’d like to speak with you a little more about it,” I said. “You know Grace Gauge, don’t you?”

He shook her hand as well as he said, “I know of you, but I don’t believe we’ve ever been formally introduced. Small town or not, there are some people who travel in completely different circles than I do. It’s a pleasure, Grace.”

She nodded. “I’m sure.”

He looked puzzled by her response, but he quickly recovered. “Won’t you step into my office? Selena, no phone calls.”

“What if it’s about that, eh, special project you’ve been working on?” she asked.

“Tell them I’ll call them back,” he said.

“Are you sure about that, Mr. Frost?”

“This is just as important,” he said as he led us inside. The inner sanctum looked as though a leather factory had exploded. Not just the couch and chairs were covered, but his desk sported a leather insert in the top of it as well.

After the three of us were seated, Frost said, “I’ve taken the liberty of having papers drawn up that represent the amount we agreed upon earlier. All you have to do is sign here, and you’ll be a rich woman,” he said smoothly as he slid a multipage document across the desk toward me.

I made no move to take it. “You might be jumping the gun. The way I remember our last conversation, we haven’t agreed on anything yet.”

When I just sat there and wouldn’t say anything more, Frost scowled for a moment before he spoke. “I assure you, no one else is going to be able to equal this. Why wait?”

“I’m not even a hundred percent sure that I’m at liberty to sell Aunt Teeks yet,” I said quite honestly. “There may be ramifications to the murder investigation that preclude a final sale until a suspect is tried and convicted for Dan’s murder.” That part I didn’t know, but it sounded good, at least as far as I was concerned.

“Sign the contract, and we’ll worry about the details later. Let’s see what happens after I turn my legal team loose on them. They won’t stand a chance.”

I wasn’t sure who his legal team was, but it was a crafty sales ploy, trying to portray it as our battle and not just his. “Even if that’s true, I’m not at all certain that I should do anything yet, given what Grace and I just found at Aunt Teeks less than an hour ago.”

Frost frowned for a moment, and then he quickly quelled it. “What did you find?”

“Show him the picture of the note,” I told Grace.

She pulled out her phone and complied with my request. Frost tried to take her cellphone to get a better look, but Grace resisted, and in the end, he came around the desk and parked himself on its edge in order to see the photo a little more clearly. The man was clearly getting frustrated by having two uncooperative women in his office. He didn’t know it yet, but things were about to get immeasurably worse than that for him.

“What is this?” He asked as he studied it for a few seconds. “‘YOU JUST LOST YOUR LAST CHANCE WITH ME!’ I don’t even know what that’s supposed to mean.”

“It could mean that you were getting frustrated by Dan’s refusal to sell his property to you, so you threatened him with this.”

The developer looked suitably outraged by the supposition, though whether it was genuine or not wasn’t clear to me. I had the feeling that in his position, he regularly feigned all sorts of emotions, including indignation, if it helped him achieve his goal. “That’s ludicrous. I didn’t write that.”

“Should we just take your word for that?” Grace asked him.

“It would be nice if you did, but let me show you something.” He walked back behind his desk, reached into one of the drawers, and pulled out a legal pad and a Sharpie pen. Writing in block letters, he then showed the result to us: I DIDN’T DO IT! “See?”

They weren’t all that similar, but then again, how hard would that be to fake? “Thanks for the effort, but it still doesn’t prove anything,” I said.

“Then I don’t know what else I can do to try to convince you,” Frost said. “Does this mean you’re refusing my offer? Because if it does, I need to turn my attention to other matters. Aunt Teeks isn’t the only property I’m looking at, and if I need to move on, then that’s what I’ll do.”

“Funny, I didn’t think you were the type to give up that easily,” I said.

“I’m not, but I’m also not the kind of man who keeps trying to run through a brick wall. Dan didn’t want to sell, but I knew if I had enough time, I’d find a way to convince him that it was in his best interest, and I wouldn’t have had to resort to threats to do it. That’s not my style.”

Whether it was or not, I couldn’t say. “Does this mean that you’re formally withdrawing your offer?”

“I never said that,” he replied, trying to take some of the bite out of his words. “If we can make this happen in a timely manner, I’m still interested. Are you ready to make this deal after all?”

“Not until I’ve heard from my other interested party,” I said, making it up on the spot.

“What? Someone else is bidding for it? Who is it?”

“I’m not at liberty to disclose that,” I said. To Grace’s credit, she didn’t even flinch at my fabricated news.

“How do I know there is even someone else?” he asked.

“Is it too much to ask that you’ll just have to trust me on that?” I offered with a grin.

“Sure. Why not? Tell you what. Why don’t you ask us both for best and final offers? I’m not about to get into a bidding war with someone, not when I have other options.” He grabbed the paperwork and withdrew it. “I’ll have a new offer by morning.”

“Make it by five p.m.,” I said. “After all, everyone needs a chance to come up with his or her final bid. It’s only fair to the estate’s beneficiaries.”

“Meaning you? And where did this ‘everyone’ come from? I thought I was just up against one other bidder.”

“I really wish that I could say more, but I’m afraid that I’ve already said too much as it is,” I said as I stood to leave.

Grace sat right where she was. “What about the other matter we discussed, Suzanne?”

I’d been counting on her bringing it up. I’d wanted to make the conversation as unrehearsed as possible, and that meant not prepping Grace for what I was about to do. “It’s not going to be necessary. He probably can’t help us with that,” I said.

I was right. That certainly got his attention. “With what? You might be surprised. I have a great many contacts of my own in this town.”

I pretended to consider it, and then I said, “Why not? Go ahead and show him.”

Grace switched to the next photo, this one of the torn image of Dan and his unidentified companion. “Does this spot look familiar? How about that sleeve?”

Frost did little more than glance at the newest image. “Sorry. I can’t help you with that, either.”

“As I suspected,” I said. Had he flinched a little when he’d first seen the photo? I thought he might have, but I couldn’t be sure.

“I’ll have that offer for you tomorrow by five, Suzanne, and I can’t see how you could refuse it. It wouldn’t make sense for you to turn me down again.”

I stopped dead in my tracks and stared straight into his eyes. “Is that a threat, Mr. Frost?”

He looked taken aback by my question. “What? No. Of course not. I told you, I don’t threaten. I’m just saying that I’ll be the high bidder. You can count on it. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got some numbers to crunch.”

As Grace and I left his office, the secretary managed to give us both wicked looks of disapproval. In turn, Grace and I both smiled broadly at her and wished her a good day, something that seemed to make her even angrier. We stood out on the sidewalk in front of Frost’s building, because whether he knew it or not, I wasn’t finished with him.

“We’re not very popular with her, are we?” Grace asked me with a grin.

“I’ll try to learn to live with my disappointment,” I said. “You did good in there.”

“I nearly blew it when I thought you’d forgotten the photo, but I managed to pull it back in before I let on. He’s a pretty cool customer, isn’t he?”

“Yes, but was I wrong, or was that a threat in the end?”

“I know he tried to whitewash it, but there’s no denying that he threatened you.”

“I thought so,” I said.

“Suzanne, just because he did doesn’t mean that he wrote that note to Dan.”

“Did you actually believe his little demonstration in handwriting?”

“Of course not, but it doesn’t make him guilty,” she said.

“What about his reaction to that photograph? He flinched for a split second, didn’t he?”

“I’m not sure,” Grace said. “If he did, I must have missed it.”

“Then again, it could have been wishful thinking on my part. The note certainly got a rise out of him. I’m glad you took pictures of it with your phone.”

“You did, too.”

“For all of the good it did us. We got less traction with them than I thought we would.” I glanced at my watch. “That should do it. I think that’s enough time.”

“For what?”

“We’re going back inside and asking Selena for a favor,” I said.

“I don’t even want to know what this is about. I can’t wait to see it unfold before my very eyes.”

“Then let’s do it.”

The secretary smiled as we opened the door, but it dissipated rather quickly when she realized that it was just us returning. “Was there something else?”

“I hate to ask, but I need to give Mr. Frost a note. I know he’s busy, so I don’t want to disturb him. May I borrow an envelope?”

She frowned at me. “Just give it to me, and I’ll see that he gets it.”

That wasn’t going to happen, especially since the note was entirely fictional. “I appreciate the offer, but this is confidential. You understand, don’t you?”

I stood there and smiled without saying another word. I was good at being stubborn, and in the end, she was the one who broke down. “Very well.”

She reached into a drawer in their filing cabinet and handed me an envelope.

I took it from her and immediately realized that it was different from the one the threatening note had been written on. This one had a return address preprinted on it, “Frost Industries, LTD.” That wouldn’t do at all. “I hate to waste a perfectly good printed envelope. Don’t you have one more generic?”

“Sorry. That’s all we’ve got here,” she said.

I was about to hand it back to her when Grace clumsily knocked it out of my hands. “Sorry about that,” she said as she retrieved it and gave it back.

“Thank you for your time.”

“What about your note?” she asked me pointedly.

“On second thought, I’d rather deliver this particular message in person tomorrow,” I said.

Once we were outside, Grace said, “Sorry about that.”

“Something tells me that you weren’t being clumsy. The envelope was no good to us. Didn’t you see the return address already printed on it?”

“For all we know, Selena has a stamp she uses on them,” Grace said.

“It was embossed. I checked,” I explained.

“Maybe so, but you forgot to look at the back. That’s why I knocked it out of your hands, so I could get a look at it myself.”

“The glue pattern,” I said, cursing myself for forgetting about it. “What did you find?”

“It was a modern envelope like the kind I use, with the wax strips covering the adhesive,” she said. “It was a bust.”

“At least we know the note didn’t come from Frost,” I said.

“Not from his office, anyway. There’s something we forgot to check while we were at Aunt Teeks,” she said.

“There are probably quite a few things we didn’t check,” I said. “What did you have in mind?”

“Not that it matters now, but what if the envelope was taken from a box that was already at the junk shop? That note could have been a spur-of-the-moment act, and that envelope was the closest piece of blank paper within reach.”

“That’s a good point,” I said. “If we ever get back in, we need to look around and see if you’re right. In the meantime, we need to move on to our next suspect.”

“Who did you have in mind? We’ve still got Benny Flint, William Jecks, and Belinda Carson on our list of suspects.”

“Benny might be hard to track down, and Belinda isn’t going to be happy about seeing us at all. Let’s find William Jecks.”

“At least he should be easier to locate,” Grace said. “He’s probably still at his own place. Feel like taking a drive to Maple Hollow?”

“Why not?” I asked. “What’s the worst thing that can happen?”

“I don’t even want to think about the possibilities,” Grace said, and I readily agreed. Ultimately it didn’t matter, though; it was time to corner another suspect and see what he had to say for himself.

I hadn’t been back to Maple Hollow for quite a while, but surprisingly, not much had changed. We found the antique shop easily enough, but the lights were off and the door was locked when we got there. Printed with a computer’s ornate script, a note announced that the shop would be closed for a week, beginning that very day. There was no explanation given, and I had to wonder just what William Jecks was up to. Was he out of town on legitimate business, or was he a cold-blooded killer, even now fleeing from the law?