1 A High-End Finish (15 page)

Jane looked at me with concern. “I hope Chief Jensen doesn’t consider you a suspect.”

“You mean just because the guy was found in my driveway with my screwdriver sticking out of his neck?”

“Oh, gross,” Lizzie said. “Ugh.”

“Sorry,” I said, remembering my own reaction to Wendell’s grisly end. “You probably shouldn’t repeat that. But hell, yeah, he considers me a suspect. Wouldn’t you?”

“Absolutely not!” Lizzie cried. She sank down into the chair. “Was it really a screwdriver? In his neck? Ick.”

“Yeah.”

We each sat silently with our own thoughts for a moment.

Jane finally spoke. “Your screwdriver? Really?”

“Yes.” I caught the look of concern my friends exchanged.

The doorbell rang.

“Saved by the bell,” I muttered, and limped over to see who was outside. I swung the door open. “Hi.”

“Hi.” Mac walked in and headed straight for the living room. “Damn, Irish. I can’t leave you alone for a minute, can I?”

I couldn’t hide my smile as I shut the door and followed him in, just in time to see Lizzie’s mouth drop open. It was a rare sight and so worth waiting for.

“Lizzie and Jane,” I said politely, “this is Mac Sullivan. Mac, these are my two oldest friends. Lizzie owns Paper Moon, the book-and-paper shop on the town square, and Jane is about to open Hennessey House, a small hotel over on Apple Street.”

“How are you?” Mac said as he shook both of their hands. “Good to meet you.”

“How did you—” Jane asked.

“When did you—” Lizzie sputtered.

Mac grinned at me, and I had to admit, it felt good to have him there. He was just so . . . steady. Not to mention gorgeous in a rugged, outdoorsy kind of way. Knowing two of my closest friends were sitting there bug-eyed was pure gravy.

“Lizzie and her husband, Hal, are two of your biggest fans,” I explained. “She’s hoping you might consent to do a book signing at her store one of these days.”

“Shannon!” Lizzie hissed.

“Hey, that sounds great, Lizzie,” Mac said jovially. “I could sign some books and also get a chance to meet some of my new neighbors.”

“That would be wonderful,” Lizzie said, instantly perking up enough to dig one of her business cards out of her purse and hand it to him. “Thank you.”

I smiled at Mac. “Thank you.”

“For you, Irish, anything,” he said with a devilish grin.

Lizzie and Jane exchanged looks of stunned disbelief, which I blithely ignored. Hey, you have to take your fun where you find it.

The good times couldn’t last, though. A few minutes later, Chief Jensen knocked on the door to ask me a few questions. He said he wouldn’t mind interrogating me right here at the house, and since I considered it a small victory that he didn’t instantly drag me down to police headquarters, I agreed. Lizzie, Jane, and Mac took off after I promised to get in touch with them later that afternoon.

I poured the chief a cup of coffee and got myself a glass of water before sitting at the dining room table.

“I know it looks bad,” I said, trying to appeal to the new and improved, more agreeable Chief Jensen. “But I didn’t kill Wendell Jarvick.”

“I believe you.”

“I’m sorry?” I rubbed my ear, unsure if I’d heard him right. “What did you say?”

“I believe you,” he said again, then added, “I know you didn’t kill Jarvick and I know you didn’t kill Jerry Saxton, either.”

“You do?”

“Yeah. Your alibi for the time of Saxton’s death is unshakable, according to the coroner’s final report.” He lifted his shoulders in a casual shrug. “Alibi aside, my instinct tells me you’re trustworthy enough.”

I pressed my lips together, feeling immensely relieved. I hadn’t realized until then how worried I’d been that he would never really believe I was innocent. “Thank you.”

“No problem,” he said gruffly. “But that doesn’t mean I’m not going to do this by the book. I mean to question you about every single thing you said or did, every interaction that transpired between you and Jarvick.”

“Okay.”

He pulled out a small notepad and pen. “Right now it doesn’t look good and I’m sure you know why.”

“Yeah,” I said gloomily. “My house. My pink screwdriver. My threat to kill him.”

“You ought to stop making those threats,” he said dryly, “innocent or not. But let’s move forward. I want you to be completely honest with me. I can’t do anything to mitigate this situation if I don’t have your cooperation.”

“You’ve got it,” I said, understanding exactly what he
wasn’t
saying: that if I didn’t give him every last bit of information I had, I might be going to jail after all. “What do you want to know?”

“Tell me where you were last night between the hours of eight o’clock and two this morning.”

“I got home from the mechanic’s shop around seven thirty last night. I was able to park the truck in the driveway for the first time in a week. Usually Wendell had his stupid car parked there and he refused to move it.”

He glanced up from his notes. “You sound angry about that.”

“It was driving me crazy.” I blew out a breath, took in another, and let it go slowly. It wouldn’t do to start ranting about the man whose dead body had just been found on my property. “Yes, I admit I was angry. Wendell was a horrible person, always pushing people’s buttons and leaving chaos in his wake. You saw what he did at the pub the other night, right? He pulled stuff like that all over town. For a little while yesterday, I even thought he might’ve been the one who cut the brake line on my bike. But then I figured he wouldn’t want to get his hands dirty.”

I took a drink of water before continuing. “I was literally counting off the days until he finally left town. Most of the people here feel the same way about him. We’ve put up with his abominable behavior every single year for the past twelve years. He’s always unpleasant. You can ask Cindy at the Cozy Cove Diner. He was so awful to her last Sunday, I thought Rocky was going to throw him through the plate-glass window.”

Eric stood and removed his brown leather bomber jacket and hooked it over the back of the chair before sitting again. “I’ll talk to Cindy, but why don’t you go ahead and tell me what happened in your own words?”

“All right.” I related the hot-coffee incident in detail. “The place was full so there were plenty of witnesses who saw the same thing I did. I heard that he pulled a number at Lindy’s on the Pier, too.”

Eric continued to jot down notes in his pad. After a minute, he looked up, frowning. “If you knew what he was like, why did you agree to let him stay here?”

“Good question.” I grimaced. “Maybe I shouldn’t have, but I couldn’t imagine it would be that big of a deal. I mean, I knew he was unpleasant, but wow. The thing is, I joined our local innkeepers’ association last year and I wanted to be part of the team. Ordinarily, our policy is that we don’t turn away a paying guest, but the group has a whole different set of rules for Wendell. Each member is required to let him stay at their establishment once. After that, they can refuse him a room.”

As Eric wrote it down, he shook his head. “Sounds like he might’ve been more trouble than he was worth.”

I sighed. “I was so looking forward to refusing him a room next year.”

His lips twisted in a smile.

“But I didn’t kill him,” I said, repeating myself. Frustrated, I added, “I don’t know how I can prove it. He was parked in my driveway and killed by my screwdriver. But I didn’t do it. I mean, seriously, would I do something like that outside my own home? And use my own screwdriver? I’m not an idiot, Chief. Er, Eric. Really.”

He reached across the table and touched my hand lightly. Trying to calm me down, I figured. Strangely enough, it worked.

“Look,” he said, “I intend to follow up on every lead and track down even the smallest clue in order to close this investigation, but let me repeat what I told you before and maybe ease your mind a little. I really don’t think you killed Wendell Jarvick.”

I looked at him for a long second or two and read reassurance in his steady gaze. For the first time since finding Wendell dead in my driveway, I took an easy breath. “You really don’t.”

He shrugged. “You said it yourself. You’re too smart to kill someone with your own screwdriver and then leave the body in a car parked in your own driveway.”

“Thank you.” But then something occurred to me. “You don’t worry that I might’ve used my own tools to fool you?”

His smile was placid. “‘I’m not a great fool.’”

“Of course not.” My eyes widened. “Wait. I know that line. Are you quoting
The Princess Bride
?”

He grinned and it warmed me down to my ribs. “Yeah. Your remark reminded me of that scene.”

“I love that movie.”

“Do you remember the next line?”

“I’m pretty sure I know
every
line.” I thought for a second. “‘I can clearly not choose the wine in front of you.’”

“Right. It was the battle-of-wits scene between the Dread Pirate Roberts and Vizzini. So, tell me, Shannon. Are you trying to outwit me?”

“No. God, no.” I rubbed my face, feeling nervous all over again, plus exhausted. “Please forget I even brought it up.”

“Why did you?”

Because I’m not thinking straight,
I thought. But it was time to start. Sitting forward in my chair, I crossed my arms on the table surface. “Because when I look at all the evidence pointing directly at me, it scares me and I get a little loopy. I wouldn’t blame anyone for thinking I was guilty. But I’m not.”

“Here’s what I’m worried about,” he said, leaning forward and matching my posture. “With all this evidence pointing at you, I’m wondering who is trying to set you up to take the fall.”

“What do you mean?”

“Somebody is going to a lot of trouble to make you look guilty. Who do you know who would go to such lengths?”

“You mean, do I have any enemies?”

“That’s another way to put it.”

It was exactly what Mac had asked the other day after my bicycle accident. At the time, the only people who had come to mind were the snotty girls who’d ridiculed me in high school. They weren’t even worth mentioning. The only other person I could think of was Wendell, but he was no longer a viable suspect, obviously.

Did I dare mention Joyce Boyer? Wade seemed to think that Joyce might have it in for me, and while I was happy to point the finger at someone else besides me, it was sort of ridiculous to think that Joyce would kill Wendell. Jerry Saxton, yes. But Wendell? She and Stan had been sitting in the pub the night Wendell attacked Whitney, but did she know the man? I doubted it. Heck, she barely knew me, except through working together on her house rehab. Would she really go to all this trouble to hurt me?

“I have no idea,” I said finally.

“You had to think pretty hard to come up with that answer.”

“I’ve lived here all my life, so naturally I’ve had run-ins with people in the past. But nothing that screams Mortal Enemy. And nothing’s happened recently that would cause me to point to anyone in particular.” I thought about it and frowned. “Well, except for tangling with the two men who are now dead.”

“Yeah,” he murmured. “Except for them.”

Something in his tone made me sit up and take notice. “What are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking that instead of trying to set you up, someone might be trying to help you out by killing off the two men who’ve been giving you so much trouble lately.”

My mouth opened but no words came out. I shook my head in bewilderment.

He leaned forward. “Shannon, think. Is there someone who craves your attention? Someone who might be willing to earn your favor by getting rid of people who bother you?”

“Oh, my God,” I said, rubbing my hands together for warmth. “That’s so sick.”

“There’s no accounting for motivations.”

I shook my head. “I don’t know anyone who would do something like that.”

He studied me for a moment. “I hate to upset you, but clearly you
do
know someone who might do that.”

I scowled at him. “Why do you think I know this person?”

He tapped his pen against his notepad. “Because of the victims. Because of the use of your tools. Whoever the killer is, he or she came onto your property and killed Wendell Jarvick using your screwdriver as a weapon. Why? It can’t just be a coincidence. Something similar happened in the case of Jerry Saxton. I’m not saying that you were meant to find his body, but you were certainly meant to be blamed for his death. He was found in a house you were working on. You had keys to all the doors. And, again, they used one of your own tools to kill him.”

I sat and digested that for a moment. “And both of the dead men were bugging the hell out of me.”

“Yes.”

“So, you think someone is trying, in their own twisted way, to do me a favor.”

“It’s a possibility.”

“But, then, why would they frame me for the murders?”

“I said they were doing you a favor. I didn’t say they were brilliant.”

“It’s horrible! I don’t know what to do.” I shoved my chair back from the table and rested my elbows on my knees. I stared at the wood grain of the floor. Finally I looked up. “I’m a little freaked-out.”

“I don’t blame you,” he said with a sympathetic smile. “And it might be related to something altogether different.”

“But you don’t think so.” I thought about the implications of what he’d suggested. “I’d rather have someone trying to set me up to look guilty than to know someone was doing it to impress me. That’s just sick and creepy.”

“I agree,” he said. He closed his notebook.

“Wait a minute,” I said. “What about my bicycle? Where does that fit in?”

“We sent the brake wire to the sheriff’s office for further examination. It looks like it was deliberately cut, but we want to be sure. They’ve got a forensics lab that’ll be able to look at it microscopically. They’ll also be able to pick up any prints or fibers that don’t match yours.”

“And if it was deliberately cut?”

He rubbed his jaw as he considered. “Then I would say someone is out to hurt you. There’s a small chance it might not be the same person who killed those two men, but I’m betting it is. He also managed to get access to your garage, which I imagine you keep locked most of the time.”