Chapter & Hearse (29 page)

She was right about that. And Ezra’s PR efforts had paid off. He’d turned a decrepit warehouse into an artists cooperative. On the strength of his labors, the surrounding houses had been converted to boutiques and specialty shops like Gilda’s Gourmet Baskets.

The result was Victoria Square—a budding tourist destination on the cusp of becoming truly successful. With decent marketing, its gaslights and the charming gingerbread facades on the buildings could bring in visitors on their way to Niagara Falls, some eighty miles west, as well as customers from nearby Rochester, New York.

“Artisans Alley is our anchor,” Gilda continued, her voice firm. “The rest of us need it to pull in shoppers and keep us afloat.”

That was a rather cold assessment of the situation. Had Gilda forgotten that a man had been killed?

“The Merchants Association will probably call an emergency meeting in the next day or so,” Gilda continued. “I hope you’ll come.”

“I’ll try.” Katie caught sight of the dashboard clock, realizing she still hadn’t called her boss to explain her absence.

As though taking the hint, Gilda straightened. “I’ll let you know about the meeting. In the meantime, I’m so sorry about Ezra. I just hope his death isn’t a fatal blow to Victoria Square, too.”

The woman turned on her heel and walked back to her store. With no one else coming her way, Katie realized she could no longer avoid the inevitable, flipped open her phone again, and punched in her work number. It rang once, twice.

“Kimper Insurance, Josh Kimper speaking.”

“Josh, it’s Katie—”

“Where the hell are you?” he bellowed, so loud she had to hold the phone away from her ear. “Do you realize there’s no coffee and I’ve got a client meeting in five minutes?”

“Sorry, Josh, but my late husband’s business partner was killed overnight. As minority owner, I’ll have to take care of things at Artisans Alley here in McKinlay Mill for at least today.”

“I don’t appreciate a last-minute call like this, Katie,” Josh barked.

Katie bit back her anger. “I’m sure Ezra didn’t plan on being murdered.”

“Murdered?”

“The police think it may have happened during a robbery attempt last night.”

“That’s too bad,” he said, with no hint of sympathy. “But you can’t let this affect
your
life.”

Katie knew Josh meant he didn’t want Ezra’s murder to affect
his
life.

Josh Kimper’s abrasive personality alone qualified him as the boss from hell. He’d given Katie a job as office manager when she’d been desperate for work with flexible hours while finishing her graduate degree. Four years later Josh liked to remind her of it on a daily—if not hourly—basis. Since Chad’s death, he’d gotten used to her putting in fifty- and sometimes sixty-hour weeks. Katie had preferred immersing herself in office routine rather than facing her empty apartment—her empty life. And, she wasn’t ashamed to admit, she needed the overtime money.

A good salary was Josh’s carrot to keep her at the agency. She made much less than Josh, of course, but then he was the talent, as he so often liked to tell her. That left Katie with the drudgery.

“The coffee’s in the cabinet. I brought in homemade chocolate chip cookies yesterday. They’re in the jar on the counter. Put them on a plate, lay out napkins, and everything will be fine.”

“You’d better be in tomorrow,” Josh grated. “We can’t let the filing go for more than a day.”

You could always do it yourself
, she thought, but held her tongue. “I’ll tell you my plans as soon as I know them.”

“And I’m not paying you for today, either,” he said.

“Then I’ll take a day of vacation. I still have more than a week left.”

“And you always wait until it’s inconvenient to take it. You’d better be here tomorrow,” Josh ordered and hung up.

Eyes narrowed, Katie stuck out her tongue at the phone.

“Do you always end your conversations that way?” came an amused male voice from outside her still-opened window.

Chagrined, Katie stabbed the phone’s power button and forced a smile for Deputy Schuler. “Only on days like today.”

“This is Detective Ray Davenport, our lead investigator.” Schuler stepped away, revealing the stocky, balding man Katie had seen earlier. She eyed the ratty raincoat. Was he trying to channel an old Columbo rerun?

Davenport nodded at her. “Ma’am.”

Or maybe he was channeling Joe Friday.

Katie studied the detective’s nondescript face, wondering if his no-nonsense demeanor was a defense mechanism he’d erected to shield him from the results of the violence he saw on a regular basis. Or could it be he was just grumpy? But then, grumpy was an apt description of her current emotional state.

“What can I do for you, detective?” Katie asked, trying to be helpful.

The older man opened a worn notebook and took a pen from the inside pocket of his raincoat. “Did the deceased—uh, Mr. Hilton—have any family?”

Deceased. It made it sound so . . . permanent. Then again, it was.

“Apparently Ezra had a nephew. His lawyer is contacting him,” Katie said.

“And that man’s name is?” Davenport prompted.

“Sorry, I don’t know.” She gave him Seth’s name and phone number, which he dutifully jotted down.

“Did Mr. Hilton always close the place by himself?”

Katie lifted her hands from her lap and shrugged. “I don’t know.”

Davenport frowned. “Who might’ve seen the deceased last, ma’am?”

“I—”

“Don’t tell me—you don’t know,” Davenport supplied, slapping his notebook closed. “Would you have a list of all the vendors who rent space at Artisans Alley? We’ll want to talk to everyone to see if they saw something or can tell if anything else was taken from the building.”

“I’m sure there’s a list somewhere in the office. I just don’t know where to put my hands on it. Ezra was pretty much a one-man show—from handling the paperwork, to arranging publicity, to manning the register if need be. From the looks of it, he may have spread himself far too thin.”

“And that,” the detective said with a penetrating gaze, “could be what got him killed.”