Collared For Murder (5 page)

“Well, it . . .” He trailed off and ran his fingers through his short blond hair. “As I said,” he continued, “it would be premature to speculate about the cause and manner of death.”

“He had scissors in his neck,” said a diminutive woman with hair the color of dryer lint and a pair of gold wire-rimmed glasses. She stood in the front row of the circle and met Jack’s gaze dead-on while everyone around her gasped in horror.

“No comment,” Jack replied.

That triggered a flurry of smothered cries and whispers.
Scissors, murder, dead
, the crowd breathed. Poor Jack had completely lost control of the situation.

“Can we leave?” someone from the back of the crowd chimed in.

Jack’s jaw muscles bunched. “Half of you just showed up, and now you want to leave?” he snapped. He took a deep breath, blowing it out slowly. “I apologize. But the answer is no, you cannot leave. Not until the police have gotten statements from each of you.”

“But if there’s a murderer in the room, are we even safe?”

“Yes.” Jack sighed. “The lights are on and the police are here. You should all be perfectly safe.”

Pris Olson stepped inside the fairy ring of onlookers, her beauty-queen features pulled tight in an expression of righteous indignation. “This is ridiculous. You know who we are and where you can find us. Why do we have to wait until everyone has been questioned?”

Jack had little patience for Pris’s overblown sense of self-importance. He was a simple man and got a little prickly when others put on airs. “Mrs. Olson,” he responded formally, “I am not going to stand here and debate with you about police procedure during an official investigation. But you were planning to spend the day in this room anyway, right?”

“Working,” Pris sniped. “I was planning to be here running my booth and earning a living. With the show on hold, we’re all just going to be twiddling our thumbs.”

“I’ve got a cribbage board,” the bespectacled woman offered helpfully.

Pris’s eyelids fluttered. “How nice for you. But I honestly have better . . .” She trailed off, apparently realizing she was about to insult the company of the very cat enthusiasts whose business she wanted to attract.

She sighed. “Lovely. I haven’t played cribbage in years.” She offered a thin-lipped smile and began taking a step backward into the crowd. As she did so,
however, she caught her spiked heel on one of the metal electrical casings that crisscrossed the ballroom floor. For a moment her arms pinwheeled and she tottered first to the left, then to the right. In the end, though, she couldn’t save herself: Pris Olson, once the queen bee of all of Merryville, Minnesota, fell flat on her face in front of an entire roomful of cat lovers.

The crowd gasped, one giant collective inhalation.

As her knees hit the ground, she reached out her arms to break her fall and, in doing so, lost control over her spacious Coach shoulder bag. The purse slid down her arm, spilling its contents as it, too, struck the ground. Papers and lipstick tubes and even a compact hair iron skittered across the floor. And then . . .

As we all watched in wonder, a shiny silver ball emerged from the recesses of the Coach bag and rolled—wobbling on the delicate wires that composed its surface—straight toward Jack Collins, stopping when it hit his foot.

As one, the crowd exhaled a mighty “oooohhh” and then grew deathly silent.

It was the platinum collar dangle, its diamond and emerald glittering in the bright overhead light, making soft tinkling noises as the dangle got knocked around inside its wire cage and eventually came loose of its mooring to the cage. It was the platinum collar dangle that had gone missing during the blackout, and it had been in Pris Olson’s purse.

Six

“O
ver my dead body.” Jack shifted in his chair, began tipping it back onto its two back legs, but then caught my mother’s eye and let the chair fall on all fours.

“Nice turn of phrase,” Rena quipped.

Rena, Dolly, Jack, and I were clustered around the table that dominated the Trendy Tails barkery, a space that had once been a dining room, back when the grand old Victorian at 801 Maple had been a single-family residence. The table—a simple pine table painted a glossy cherry red and decorated with hand-painted birds and flowers—had been in this room for as long as I could remember. When Ingrid Whitfield had run the Merryville Gift Haus out of the space, the table had held mountains of hand-knit sweaters,
scarves, and mittens. Now it served many purposes: I used it when I was cutting patterns for my hand-tailored pet apparel, Rena occasionally used it to display her homemade organic pet treats, but it was primarily used as a gathering spot for friends and family when the doors to Trendy Tails were locked to the public.

That evening, the four of us sat at the table discussing the day’s events while my mother dished out servings of her famous creamy mushroom hotdish. Basically, it was mushroom stroganoff: earthy mushrooms and egg noodles in a hearty herbed cream sauce. My mother, however, would have protested slapping such a highfalutin name on her homespun casserole. She took pride in creating simple home-style fare, and she would assume she was being accused of putting on airs if you’d called her hotdish something so fancy. And, to be fair, Mom parted ways with a traditional stroganoff by making the dish vegetarian, adding green peas and carrots for color, and smothering the top with buttered bread crumbs. I was happy to let her call it whatever she wanted to, because it was one of my favorites, and I didn’t want anything to slow the frequency with which she made it. Sticklers might argue that it wasn’t a proper dish for a summer supper, but the gusto with which we were all scooping dinner onto our plates made it clear there were no sticklers at the table.

“I’m not kidding, Izzy,” Jack said. “You’re staying out of this.”

I sighed and gave Jinx a gentle nudge to encourage her to jump off my lap. I didn’t mind the animals being in the room while we ate, but I didn’t want to drip hot mushroom sauce on my cat. “I don’t know why you’re in such a state, Jack. I’m not about to put on a deerstalker and go looking for clues with a magnifying glass. But I can find out stuff you can’t. People clam up when you’re around, but it seems they’ll say just about anything in front of me. I promise I’m just going to keep my ear to the ground.”

Jack glowered at me. Given my past behavior, my promise may have lacked credibility.

“It can’t hurt,” Dolly added as she ground a generous amount of black pepper over her hotdish. “Jack, you have to admit that we have a pretty good track record in the field of criminal investigation.”

Rena snorted and I winced. It had to chafe just a bit that a gang of amateurs had beaten the police at their own game, not once but twice in the past year. Jack never mentioned our sleuthing in those terms, but I’d heard others make cracks about Merryville’s new homemaker homicide division.

“You’ve gotten lucky,” Jack said.

“Hey!” Rena, Dolly, and I protested in unison.

The look on Jack’s face, the look of a man who’s
just realized he’s the only man in a roomful of women, would have been comical if he hadn’t just dismissed the hard work I’d put into solving those crimes. He looked to the floor where Packer sat wiggling in anticipation of a savory morsel falling to the floor, apparently seeking some sort of solidarity. “I mean,” Jack backpedaled, “that you’ve gotten lucky that you haven’t been hurt. Besides, I understand why you were so motivated to snoop in Merryville’s last two murders, given Rena and Dolly’s involvement”—my friends and family had a terrible knack for looking like killers—“but Pris is hardly part of your inner circle.”

“The man has a point,” Rena said. “Pass the pepper, please.”

Echoes of Phillip Denford’s early-morning threats filled my ears. I didn’t realize I’d stopped breathing until my lizard brain took over, and I sucked in a gasp of air. Jack was wrong about my desire to get involved in this investigation. It wasn’t just about protecting Pris. I had a powerful reason for wanting to hunt for evidence of the real killer—whether that person turned out to be Pris or someone else—but I wasn’t prepared to share that reason with my cop boyfriend just yet.

It felt like a betrayal. If we had a solid relationship, it had to be built on trust. I should
trust
Jack with the information I had about Denford’s unethical practices; it might actually help with his investigation. But it would also point a blazing orange arrow at my
head, identifying me as a possible suspect. One of the very reasons I admired Jack so much was his sense of honesty and integrity. He would have to take the information to the rest of the police department. He might even have to recuse himself from the investigation. Trusting Jack with my story meant trusting the entire Merryville Police Department with my story, and they weren’t all dating me.

“I know there’s little love lost between me and Pris. That’s why I promise I won’t get us involved in any crazy shenanigans. Just a little active listening.”

My mother set her own plate on the table and plopped down in her chair. “I don’t see what good it can do. Poor Pris looks guilty as sin, and if you go poking around, you’re just going to antagonize these cat people whom you want to woo. You can’t help Pris, but you can sure do some damage to your business prospects.”

“Thank you, Mrs. McHale,” Jack said with a self-satisfied smile.

“Not so fast, young man,” she scolded, one finger raised in a motherly assertion of power. Her tone made Packer whine. “I appreciate you caring about my daughter and trying to keep her safe, but don’t go thinking you can tell her what to do. My Izzy has a mind of her own, and she can make her own decisions. And her own mistakes,” she added pointedly, staring at the sauce-covered noodle I was casually
lowering for Packer. I was a wildly indulgent pet parent, and both Packer and Jinx had the poor manners to prove it.

“Mother!” I hissed.

“Well, it’s true. I don’t care that your sisters and all your school friends called you Dizzy Izzy,” she said, managing to brighten my blush even more. “You’re a smart girl and always have been. Just look at what you’ve done with this business. We all thought you were crazy.”

“Mother!”

“Izzy. Clothes for cats?”

“And dogs,” Rena added helpfully.

“Right,” my mom continued. “You have to admit it sounds like a crazy business, especially for a normal little town like Merryville, but you’ve actually managed to make it work. We all doubted you—me, your dad, and your sisters—everyone except Aunt Dolly, and look at how wrong we were. I just won’t stand for anyone else giving you short shrift.”

“I . . . I just—”

Jack raised a hand to halt my flustered response. “Mrs. McHale, I promise you that I would never underestimate Izzy’s intelligence. I just worry about the size of her heart. The softy who gives illicit noodles to her dog is the softy who may inadvertently run up against some very bad guys . . . and not realize they’re bad guys until it’s too late. I want to protect her from that.”

“Enough of the smushy-mushy stuff,” Rena said. “I just don’t think Pris did it.”

We all stopped midchew and turned to face her. Rena seemed like the last person on earth to champion Pris’s cause.

“What?” Rena said, a forkful of hotdish hovering near her mouth. “Look, Pris is a witch with a capital B and she has fallen on hard times, but what good is stealing a fancy cat ornament going to do her? Where’s she going to sell something like that without people asking questions?”

Jack raised his eyebrows. “You seem to have given this a lot of thought.”

Rena grinned. “Like Dolly said, we’ve got some mad investigative skills at this table.” She reached out to exchange a fist bump with Dolly, who was cackling like a guinea fowl. “And thanks to my dad’s love affair with the bottle, I’ve met some pretty sketchy people in my time.”

“What about poor Mr. Denford’s death?” my mom asked. I’d filled her in on the big fight between Denford and Pris the night before. “Stealing the collar ornament may have been out of Pris’s comfort zone, but it sounds like she had a real bone to pick with Denford. Between needing money and her public display of animosity toward Phillip Denford, she seems like a prime suspect.”

“The murder means Pris definitely isn’t the bad guy,” Rena said. “Pris never would have killed Denford that way.”

“I don’t know,” Dolly responded. “That Pris Olson is a tough cookie. I can see her whacking someone without batting an eye.”

My practical mother gave her fanciful sister a gentle nudge on the arm. “Dorothy. Whacking? You need to stop it with the true-crime television shows.” She frowned. “But you make a good point about Pris having enough mean in her to kill someone.”

“True,” Rena said. “I didn’t mean that Pris was above committing murder, but not in the way someone killed Phillip. I don’t see scissors as Pris’s weapon of choice. Too up close. Too bloody. Pris would pick poison. Or shoot someone from far away. Maybe even conk someone over the head with a heavy object. But she wouldn’t get her hands all bloody by stabbing someone.”

Jack shook his head. “This is all very clever, Rena. But I’ve been doing this for ten years now, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s this: when a person is desperate enough, they can do just about anything.”

*   *   *

Rena, Jack, Dolly, and my mom all headed for their respective homes. With the doors locked and the dishes done, I pulled out my trusty Singer and sat back at the red table for a sewing session. My mind
buzzed with thoughts about Pris, Phillip Denford, and all the horrible things I’d seen that day, and sewing always calmed me.

The talk that evening had inspired me to craft a deerstalker hat for dogs, one that would keep the whole head warm while still allowing for ear mobility. Scraps of corduroy and a sherpa fleece I’d used for snug coats the winter before quickly took shape. I had just run the last seam on my prototype and was debating whether to raid the freezer for a pint of cherry chip or go straight to bed when I heard quiet rapping on the glass portion of the front door.

I looked up, and the warm glow of the porch light revealed Sean Tucker.

I quickly backstitched three or four stitches to hold my seam, snipped the thread that tethered the hat to the machine, and—as I shuffled to the door—plopped the hat on a dog-shaped mannequin perched on a shelf near the front of the store.

“Sean! What brings you out so late at night? Do you want some ice cream?”

“Is that a trick question?” Sean’s face lit up with his lopsided grin as he stepped into the store. “I always want ice cream.”

It was true. Sean Tucker’d had a raging sweet tooth since I’d first met him in the third grade. I always gave him the trick-or-treat candy that no one in the family wanted—the Mary Janes, the Laffy Taffies, and
the Bit-O-Honeys. The remarkable thing is that he could hoover up all that sugar and remain whippet thin. Even now, he was in his early thirties, and his waistline hadn’t caught up with his candy addiction.

He followed me into the first-floor kitchen. As I scooped us dishes of ice cream, I studied him out of the corner of my eye. Sean, Rena, and I had been best friends in both middle and high school, our tight bond broken only when Sean decided to declare his love for me and woo me away from my high school sweetheart, Casey Alter. In retrospect, I realized that he’d been right that stormy night, but at the time I was fixated on the happily-ever-after that Casey and I had planned. The event drove a wedge between us that wasn’t removed until nearly a year earlier, when we’d collaborated in solving a murder.

I considered him one of my closest friends again, but the line between romance and friendship was a little fuzzy for us. First I’d thought that his high school passion could serve as the basis for a grown-up relationship, but we’d just never seemed to find our way back to that path. Then, when I started dating Jack, he and Sean had become hostile toward each other, acting like romantic rivals. Because we were friends, it wasn’t unusual for Sean to stop by at odd hours, sometimes just to chat, but I never knew if he might suddenly decide that we should be—that we
were
—
more than friends. And I had no idea what Jack would think if he knew that Sean and I were hanging out in the wee hours.

“Haven’t you been home yet?” His tie was gone, but Sean still wore the suit he’d worn through a day of lawyering.

“No. You wouldn’t believe the day I’ve had.”

“Back at you.” I handed him his bowl of ice cream.

“I heard you found Denford’s body?”

I nodded.

“That must have been horrible for you. Are you okay?”

I froze. No one—not even dear, dear Jack, not even my own mother—had asked if I was okay with what I’d seen. And, frankly, I’d thought I was doing just fine. After all, it was my third body. I should have been used to death by then.

But the moment the words came out of Sean’s mouth, I realized I’d been holding my emotions in all day. Yes, I’d seen dead people before, people I’d known better and liked more than Denford. Still, this was different. More brutal. More real. Phillip’s murder scene was by far the most viscerally violent scene I’d ever witnessed.

And once Phillip’s meeting with me the morning of his death came to light, I might find myself a suspect. There was no question that I couldn’t keep my secret
forever. . . . Thus far I’d only been staving off the inevitable. I had no idea how anyone—especially Jack—would react when the truth eventually came out.

I felt wobbly inside and could feel tears welling in my eyes.

Sean took the ice cream from my hands and placed both dishes on the counter, then pulled me into his embrace. The sound of his heart thumping beneath my ear made me lose it. I started sobbing in earnest and wrapped my arms tightly around Sean’s neck. He held me gently, whispering a steady stream of calming nonsense into my hair.