Death by Proposal (8 page)

 “Did
Sean write to Clay himself?” Mattheus asked.

“Not
that I saw,” said Cindy. “I’ve got a lot more to go over in Kate’s computer.”

“Police
gave me all the passwords we need to get onto both of their pages, and into
their email,” said Mattheus.

Cindy
was relieved. “Wonderful.”

“I’ve
been checking Clay online,” Mattheus said as they approached the restaurant he’d
chosen, a charming, adobe, outdoor café, with a few tables available outside.

He
and Cindy immediately sat down at a table and continued to process what they’d
found.

“I
haven’t finished with everything,” Mattheus continued, “but right now Clay
seems fine. He graduated from a fine university in the South, top of his class,
had a great reputation and was editor of the yearbook. He went on to graduate
school and now works for his father’s firm as a chemist.”

Cindy
was impressed and not surprised. Clay had seemed like a person of substance
from the moment she saw him.

“There’s
not too much on his Facebook page or social media,” Mattheus continued. “A few
friends, pictures of his parents, dog, and plenty of quotes from some writers
he likes. Could be a bookworm? Not sure. Don’t see much about past
relationships, either.  At least not online. Could be he’s just a private guy.”

Cindy
sighed, “Not much to grab onto.”

“A
bit of a loner, maybe?” Mattheus said. “Don’t see lots of his friends
contacting him now, either.”

“Or
could be he’s just in shock,” said Cindy, “and hasn’t contacted them.  Did you
check his email correspondence with Kate?”

“Not
yet, there’s a lot to do here,” said Mattheus. “You can do that. Let me call
the police now and tell them that Sean and Riva are right here under our nose.”

Just
as Mattheus was opening his phone to call, to Cindy’s surprise, Rod and Spike
drove up to the restaurant in red mopeds.

“Hey,
look who’s here,” Mattheus was surprised, and closed his phone. “You guys
following us, or what? I was just about to put in a call to you.”

Rod
and Spike got off their bikes, parked it, came over and sat down.

“Seems
like we can’t go out for a bite without you guys turning up,” said Cindy. “How
did you know we were here?”

Rod
laughed. “It’s not hard to track of you two. How many hot looking detectives do
you think we have in town? People think you’re movie stars or something.
Anyway, it’s better for us to talk in person if possible, so we can go into
details on the spot. And, we have something to show you that might clinch the
case for all we know.”

“Shoot,”
said Mattheus as they were all seated.

“Medical
examiner’s report is in,” Spike started, “body showed no sign of struggle.
Injuries consistent with a fall from patio. “

Cindy
and Mattheus sat on the edge of their seats.

“No
drugs, a little alcohol, not much. The only fingerprints on the body belonged
to Clay – which made sense since they’d been together all evening. Physical
evidence points only to suicide,” Spike concluded. “What say you?”

“So
far no evidence of her being depressed,” Mattheus interjected. “From the looks
of it she was happy that night.”

 “Kate’s
ex-boyfriend and his date are still at the hotel,” Cindy burst in. “You know
about them?”

“What’s
to know?” Rod slowly ran his hand over his head. “If I kept track of all the ex’s
of the people who came to our hotels I’d be stark raving nuts by now.”

“Kate
and Sean broke up a short time ago,” Cindy spoke heatedly. “Seems he cheated on
her with a girl named Riva. They’re both at the hotel now.”

“If
I kept a record of all the people here who cheated,” Rod continued.

“Sean
wanted to get back together with Kate, but she would have none of it,” Cindy
kept going.

“It’s
an old story. I heard it a thousand times. You got to have more than that,”
said Spike, bored.

“I
saw Sean and Riva join Kate and Clay at their table in the dining room the
night she was killed,” Cindy insisted. “She was surprised to see him. Was he
trailing her?”

“Pure
conjecture,” Spike insisted.

“Listen,
I have something much more relevant,” said Rod, stopping Cindy. “It’s evidence
for  suicide.” Then Rod nodded to Spike, who pulled a crumbled paper out of his
vest. “Show the note we found to Cindy,” Rod said.

Spike
handed Cindy the crumbled paper that was torn at the edges.

“We
were going through the evidence we’d collected from their room, and this turned
up. It was stuffed in her wastepaper basket.  Read it,” said Rod.

Cindy
smoothed out the note carefully. It had been written in a shaky hand.

Sean,
this is the last time I’m writing to you, but there’s nothing else I can do. I’m
sorry to be doing this so soon, I never wanted to hurt you, I still care and I
always will. I had to move on fast, I just had to. I couldn’t stand thinking
about you all the time and living without you. And, the thought of you with
Riva, was too much for me. I couldn’t go back with you after that. I hope you
understand what I’m doing now. And, I hope you realize you’ll always have my
love. Kate.

Cindy
stared at the note, her hand trembling as she read. The note had been crumpled
up, ripped and thrown away. Kate had never sent it. Sean never received it,
either.

“Sounds
like a suicide note to me,” Spike said softly. “It’s the evidence we’ve been
looking for.”

Cindy
wasn’t ready to concede. “But Sean’s down here now with his girl, Riva. We’ve
got to find out more about them.”

Rod
looked at Cindy with a little gleam in his eye. “It’s easy to see why you have
the reputation you do,” he conceded. “You won’t let any little thing pass by.”

“Having
the ex-boyfriend and his date here is not a little thing,” said Cindy.

“I
agree,” Mattheus chimed in. “Before you tie it up and call it a suicide, we at
least need time to talk to him and look into his background. The girl’s family
deserves it. It’s gonna be awful to live with the idea that their daughter
ended her life.”

“Will
they live with it any better if they find out that someone killed her?” Rod
grumbled.

“They
might,” said Cindy, “takes some guilt away.”

“So,
take a little time,” Spike conceded. “If this guy and his girlfriend are at the
hotel, go talk to them, check their background. It won’t take long for you to
agree with us.

Rod
and Spike finished lunch and took off, leaving the crumpled note with Cindy.
The feel of it in her hand made her uneasy. It was almost as if Kate were right
here, touching her gently, speaking to her. Cindy felt both sadness and anxiety
etched in every line on the page. But what was Kate really saying? The note
could be read in different ways. Was she warning of a suicide? Was Cindy holding
proof of that in her hand? Or was the note a love note, a final good bye to
Sean, before Kate went forward with Clay? Cindy intuitively felt there was much
more to this than anyone now had any idea of. It just didn’t make sense that
Kate would commit suicide after posting on about her engagement on Facebook, and
being so thrilled about it.  Something in Cindy said it wasn’t so.

But,
in all truth, Cindy hadn’t really given the possibility of suicide careful
exploration.  After seeing Kate the night before, the whole idea seemed outlandish
to her. But even so, she knew she had to consider it. She also needed to speak
with Kate’s mother and Carl. This could be the perfect time to do both.

After
lunch, Mattheus decided to go back to the station with the cops and use their
computers to continue the investigation. He enjoyed ferretting up odd
information that brought new light to dark corners, was good at it. Right now
they needed something like that badly, or else it looked as though the case
would labeled suicide and quickly closed. Mattheus and Cindy planned to catch
up after he spent a few hours investigating, and then go together to interview
Sean.

After
Mattheus and the police left, Cindy sat alone at the café, reading the note
over and over. When was this written exactly? What was Kate thinking at the
time? If she still loved Sean so much, why was she getting engaged to Clay?
Cindy wanted so badly to speak to Kate directly, but her young life had been
cut off at the pass. She would have to rely on what she could learn from those
Kate was close to.

Cindy
took her phone to call Carl. He was easier to talk to than Tyra. Cindy wanted
to see both of them in person, show them Kate’s note and see what they had to
say.

The
phone rang and Carl picked up immediately, happy to hear from Cindy.

“We
were just wondering where you were and how things were progressing,” Carl said
as soon as he heard Cindy’s voice.

“I’m
in town right now,” said Cindy, “on Orjeanstadt Sreet.”

“Perfect,”
Carl responded, “You’re probably a few steps away from us.  Can you find your
way to Taylor’s Bar and join us there? It’s in the center of everything.”

“I’m
coming right over,” Cindy quickly replied.

*

Tyra
and Carl sat at the bar drinking as Cindy walked in. The moment Carl saw her,
he got up, went to her, put his arm around her waist, and guided her to the
empty seat they had waiting.

Tyra
put her drink down as Cindy approached. Her eyes were swollen and her face
blotchy, probably from a mixture of drinking and crying.

“Oh
God, it’s so good to see you again,” Tyra breathed.

Cindy
gave her a hug, “Good to see you, too,” she said.

“We
needed to get away a few minutes,” Carl said, explaining what they were doing here
as he pulled out the seat for Cindy. “Endless calls, emails, reporters and family
on their way down to give us support.”

Cindy
was curious about what other family they had. Carl was certainly an unusually
attentive brother and uncle. She looked at him for a long moment and wondered
what his life was like, what he did for a living. He was certainly a strikingly
handsome man. Was he with someone? Where was she? And, of course, Cindy hadn’t
heard a word about Kate’s dad yet.

“How’s
Kate’s dad?” Cindy couldn’t help but ask.

“Not
good,” Carl shook his head slowly.

“He’s
in the hotel room breaking down,” Tyra added in a quivering tone. “I’ve never
seen him this bad. He definitely has moods, of course, but now he won’t’ get up
off his chair.”

“Understandable,”
said Cindy softly.

“No
it isn’t,” Tyra’s eyes shot sparks, “nothing is understandable. Especially my
husband, Wendell.”

“Take
it easy, Tyra,” Carl was patting her arm.

“It’s
too much for me to see him like this when we need him so much now,” Tyra seemed
at the edge of tears. “I told him to man up, but he’s blocking me out again.”

“He’ll
come around,” said Cindy softly.

“Says
who?” Tyra suddenly looked flaming mad. “Has he ever once come around when I
truly needed him?”

Carl
turned to Cindy and smiled. “Family matters,” he tried to make light of it, “who
doesn’t have to deal with them?”

Cindy
felt a surge of admiration for him. She wondered how Tyra would have managed if
her brother hadn’t been there.

“It’s
important for us to talk to Kate’s dad,” Cindy said.

“You
can try if you want,” Tyra shot up, “but keep Mattheus out of it. Go yourself.
Wendell doesn’t take well to men probing him.”

Cindy
decided to schedule that meeting as soon as possible. Right now Carl and Tyra’s
feelings were so raw she wondered if this was the time to show them the note
Kate had written to Sean before she died. But time was of the essence, she and
Mattheus had to gather as much information as they could. Or else the case
would shut down before it was ever opened.

 “How’s
the investigation going?” Carl asked then, re-focusing the meeting to where it
needed to go.

“We
found out about Kate’s ex-boyfriend, Sean,” Cindy started slowly.

“A
real winner,” Carl sneered. “You could have asked me about him right away.”

“We
didn’t know there was an ex-boyfriend in the picture,” Cindy replied lightly.

“When
a girl’s as beautiful as Kate, there’s always an ex-boyfriend around,” he said.
“She never lacked for attention.”

“Carl
never liked Sean,” Tyra filled in, as she took a long gulp of her drink. “I
thought Sean was alright, but Carl disagreed. In fact, he couldn’t stand him.”

Cindy
was taken aback. “That’s a pretty strong way to put it,” she said.

“Sean’s
a slippery guy and I saw it right away,” said Carl. “I told Kate that a
thousand times. I said, honey he’s not for you. I promise, you can do much
better.”

“Sounds
like she didn’t listen,” said Cindy.

 “Of
course she listened, what I said mattered a great deal to Kate. She listened
and said she was sorry that I didn’t like him. She hoped one day I would,” said
Carl.

“And
she just went right on seeing him as much as she liked,” Tyra piped in,
throwing her head back and looking up at the ceiling. “Kate was wonderful that
way, she could charm the life out of anyone, smile, chat, look obliging, but
then she just went right ahead and did what she wanted. I always said that
about her, but no one paid attention to me.”

“You’re
too hard on her Tyra,” Carl interjected, “you always were.”

“Not
hard enough,” Tyra insisted. “If I were this might never have happened.”

“How
long were Kate and Sean seeing each other?” Cindy asked, wanting to stay on
track.

“A
long time,” said Carl, “much too long. He was her high school sweetheart and it
went on and on.”

“He
was her prom date,” Tyra interrupted. “I had a bad feeling even back then.”

“Kate
was never really happy with him,” said Carl, “everyone knew that. It was always
one thing and then another, up and down, back and forth.  They’d get together
and then break up again, all through college and after. That’s a sign of
danger, I told her. If you knew how many times I begged her not to go back to
him.”

“What
do you mean a danger sign? Cindy was all over it. “Did he harm her?”

“I
don’t mean it like that,” said Carl. “I mean it’s a sign that the two of them
were not really meant for each other. Too much turbulence in their patterns, if
you know what I mean. Differences don’t usually get better, they get worse.
Sooner or later, the relationship breaks.  And, the longer it goes on, the
harder it hits.” Carl looked distressed as he spoke, as though he knew the
drill well, had been through it himself many times.

Sadly,
also had Cindy. “Why did Kate keep going back to Sean?” she asked.

“That’s
the real question, isn’t it?” said Carl, turning full face to Cindy and looking
into her eyes, deep down, way past the question. “If we had an answer to that
one, the world would be a different place, love would last -.”

“Love
lasts,” said Cindy in a small voice.

Carl
smiled and moved closer to her. “Really? For whom? When?”

For
a moment Cindy wanted to tell him about Clint, that she still loved him either
though he’d died. But, she stopped herself instantly. That was beyond the scope
of the conversation, and also it suddenly struck her, that she didn’t think of
talking about Mattheus that way.

“Kate
went back to Sean over and over because loved him,” Tyra chimed in, unabashed. “She
loved Sean wildly.”

Carl
winced.

“Carl
could never understand that,” Tyra continued, “but to me it was obvious. Kate
was never herself when she broke up with Sean. She’d go places, see friends,
was always popular, but part of her was always just waiting for them to get
back together again.”

 “I
don’t get it, never did,” Carl’s jaw clenched hard, “such a gorgeous girl, such
a beautiful heart, what the hell did she see in him? He was lousy at school,
dropped out of college, loved racing cars, hung out with a bunch of arrogant
losers.”

It
sounded gruesome to Cindy, like a strange kind of torture for Kate.

Tyra
put her hand on Carl’s now.

“I
did my best to stop it,” Carl continued, “I even tried to bribe her once.
Nothing worked.”

“Kate
loved you, Carl,” Tyra suddenly cried out, her voice breaking. “No one in the
world could have been a better uncle than you. It’s not your fault.  Some women
like guys who give them a hard time. They can’t help it. I’ve seen it before.”

Cindy
thought for a moment about her relationship with Mattheus, also up and down,
wonderful and then troublesome. Was that a sign of danger? There was certainly
a fascination about it though. It never got boring, that was for sure.

“Okay,
tell us, what did you find out about Kate and Sean?” Carl wanted to know more.

Cindy
was relieved to get back on track. “People on Kate’s Facebook page mentioned
that she and Sean had recently broken up, had even come close to getting
engaged.”

“Thank
God that never happened,” said Carl nervously.

“That
would have been better than this,” Tyra interrupted.

“Some
said that Kate had been really hurt by the recent breakup,” Cindy continued. “They
wondered why she was getting engaged to someone else so fast.”

“
They
wondered? What about
us?
” Tyra couldn’t seem to absorb the idea. “Kate
never once said a word to any of us that she was getting engaged.”

That
was definitely jarring, no doubt about it.

 “You’re
sure of that?” asked Cindy. “Kate didn’t mention it to you either, Carl?”

“No,
she didn’t,” Carl shook his head. “It came as a shock.”

“Did
she mention Clay at all?” Cindy continued.

“Very
little,” Tyra shrugged. “I knew she was emailing with someone online, but that’s
what they all do, isn’t it?”

“Just
emailing?” asked Cindy.

“Kate
said she met someone online who wrote wonderful emails and sometimes sent her
poems. She looked forward to reading them, it made her feel better. I vaguely
knew he came up to Long Island to meet her a few times and they went out on some
dates,” said Tyra. “Kate didn’t say much about their dates, either. He was just
someone from out of town. It didn’t seem important.”

“Have
you met him yet?” asked Cindy.

Tyra
covered her face with her hands and started crying. “I haven’t, I can’t. It’s
too awful.”

Cindy
turned to Carl. “Did Kate mention that she dated Clay to you?” Cindy asked.

“Yes,”
Carl said somberly. “Frankly, I was glad that someone else had caught her
interest. I never met him, but it sounded was good. He seemed stable enough,
did well in school, worked for his father’s company. They didn’t actually meet
or start emailing until after she and Sean broke up. Sean cheated on Kate with a
girl in town, Riva. A piece of trash.”

“Carl!”
Tyra was disturbed. “Don’t call her that. You don’t know her.”

“Riva
and Sean hurt Kate,” Carl shot back. “What else can you expect from a slimy
guy? The cheating was what did it. It was finally too much for Kate. She didn’t
sleep for three nights. Then when she met Clay he wrote to her all day long.  She
started to feel better, was able to sleep again at night. It kept her mind
occupied, she looked forward to hearing from him.”