Death of a Coupon Clipper (15 page)

Hayley was still nursing a bruised jaw when she got up the following morning to make
Randy breakfast. He didn’t get home until two-thirty because he was busy balancing
the books at the bar, so Hayley decided to surprise him with strawberry pancakes,
his childhood favorites. By the time he ambled into the kitchen, yawning, dressed
in a ratty t-shirt and gray sweatpants, she was already pouring syrup on his pancakes
and setting them down on the table, along with a cup of piping-hot coffee and a copy
of the
Island Times.

“You’re too good to me, sis,” Randy said, giving her a peck on the cheek before sitting
down. “I’m suddenly back in the fifth grade, late for the bus, and looking for my
book bag.”

“Well, I’m glad I could bring you back to a happy time in your life.”

“Actually, I was late for the bus on purpose. I was trying to avoid that big bully,
Jason Simmons, who used to tease me and call me ‘precious’ and steal my lunch money.”

“Oops. Never mind.”

Randy smiled and dug into his pancakes. “He’s in prison now, so karma wins out again.”

Hayley watched as Randy devoured the pancakes, stopping only once to close his eyes
and savor the fruity taste. “Oh, man, I love these. Sergio never lets us have anything
decadent like this. It’s always fresh fruit only and maybe cereal, but it has to be
multigrain and with almond milk. Yuck. And then, to make things worse, he’s always
saying things like, ‘You know, if we got up an hour earlier, we would both have time
to go to the gym.’ Sometimes I wonder why we’re together.”

“You know what they say, ‘Opposites attract,’” Hayley said. She stopped. The pain
in her jaw was excruciating, and she turned away from Randy to touch it again and
make sure it hadn’t cracked. She didn’t want him worrying, so she had no intention
of filling him in on her confrontation with Cassidy Culpepper on her way home last
night.

Randy opened the paper and perused the front page. “Officer Donnie claims to be making
headway in the Candace Culpepper murder, but I don’t believe him. Part of me thinks
I should call Sergio and let him know what’s going on before Donnie blows the whole
case.”

“Don’t drag him back from Brazil. He hasn’t seen his family in two years. Let them
enjoy their time together. I’m sure Donnie has people helping him investigate,” Hayley
said.

“Yeah, and I know just who Santa’s secret helper is too,” Randy said with a grin.
“Liddy, Mona, and I talked about that last night at the bar.”

Hayley really didn’t want to inform Randy that his little gossip session almost resulted
in her untimely death in a hit-and-run accident.

Lucky for her, she only ended up with a sore jaw.

There was a knock at the door. Lex stood outside, waving.

“It’s open,” Randy called out, turning the page of the paper.

Lex strolled in, putting his arm around Hayley and giving her a squeeze. He tried
kissing her, but she didn’t want anyone getting near her throbbing jaw, so she turned
away at the last minute.

“You all right?” Lex asked, a little hurt.

“Oh, yes. Fine. Just late for work.”

“That’s why I’m here,” Lex said. “I have to talk fast. Clark likes to time my coffee
breaks now. But I’m done at noon today and I want to go cross-country skiing.”

“You should definitely go. You deserve an afternoon off,” Hayley said.

“I want to go with
you,
” Lex said.

“Lex, I can’t. I have to work today.”

“Come on, Hayley. We went through this last night. You have plenty of personal days
coming to you.”

“He’s right, sis,” Randy said, stuffing another forkful of strawberry pancakes into
his mouth. “It’s also a great way to work off this huge breakfast you made.”

“I’m not the one eating it,” Hayley said, rolling her eyes, before turning back to
Lex. “I have a column due.”

“You can write it when you get home, before you go to bed. I’m working late again
tonight. You’ll have the whole place to yourself,” Randy said. “You’ll whip something
out in an hour and be done by the time
NCIS
starts. Then you can drool over Mark Harmon,” Randy said before catching himself.
He looked up at Lex. “She only likes Mark Harmon because he reminds her of you.”

“Nice save,” Lex said, smiling. He then looked Hayley in the eyes. “What do you say?”

She was tempted. That was for sure. And one afternoon skiing in the park was not going
to make that much of a difference at work or in finding answers to Candace Culpepper’s
murder.

“Do it,” Randy said, folding up the sports section and handing it to Lex. “Here. You
can have this. I never read it.”

“Okay, fine. I’ll call Sal and let him know,” Hayley said. “But I have to be back
by five so I have plenty of time to write my column.”

Hayley knew allowing Lex to have his way for once was the smart decision. Because
if in the future an argument ever arose over how they always had to do what
she
wanted, she could trot out this prime example, which would clearly illustrate why
he was dead wrong and was being completely unreasonable.

Yes, relationships were sometimes very hard work.

 

 

Lex returned to Randy’s house a few minutes past twelve o’clock. After loading the
skis in the back of Lex’s truck and driving into the heart of Acadia National Park,
Hayley began to question what she was doing. Cross-country skiing was far more arduous
than downhill skiing. And she hadn’t done it in a year, ever since her last skiing
excursion ended in disaster. But that was another story.

She was also hopelessly out of shape. She was afraid she would force Lex, a natural
athlete, to lag behind to the point where he wasn’t having any fun. So she instructed
Lex to choose a snowy path she knew well so he could ski ahead of her if she felt
she was slowing him down, and then she could move at her own pace.

Lex, on the other hand, didn’t care at all about how fast he skiied the trail. He
just wanted to spend the afternoon with Hayley. As they set off, Hayley was feeling
winded and out of breath within minutes. Although the path was relatively flat, the
snow was heavy and sticky, so it took a lot of effort to propel the skis forward.
Lex showed no frustration with Hayley, who was obviously struggling, but she immediately
started feeling bad.

“Why don’t you go on ahead, Lex, and just let me catch up.”

“It’s a beautiful day. Sun’s shining. Temperature’s not too bad. I’m in no hurry.”

“Okay,” Hayley wheezed, digging her ski poles into the compacted snow and pulling
herself forward a few inches more.

This was much worse than that yoga class.

Lex rambled on about how he was no longer happy working at the Hollingsworth estate,
how Edgar’s illness and Clark’s unexpected appearance had changed everything. His
crew’s morale had sunk to a new low and he was no longer happy living in the caretaker’s
house because Clark was constantly around, reminding him how unsatisfied he was with
the work Lex was doing. It was getting to the point where it just wasn’t worth it.

Lex asked Hayley’s advice.

Should he stay and hope Edgar recovered?

Or should he be looking around for different opportunities?

The only trouble with that was that in the dead of winter in Maine, those opportunities
were few and far between.

Hayley wanted to tell him to follow his gut. Lex was well liked in town. He would
find something else, given a little time. However, she couldn’t get the words out.
No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t speak. She was out of breath and ready
to collapse. She actually would prefer the StairMaster at the gym at this point.

They had reached an incline—or in Hayley’s mind, a steep hill—and she was having trouble
climbing it with her skis. Every step forward she clumsily took with the skis, she
slid back four more.

Lex extended his gloved hand to help her, but she waved him off.

“No, Lex, I need to do this on my own,” Hayley said, determined. “But please keep
going. I don’t want to hold you up.”

“You’re not holding me up,” Lex said.

“I have some advice for you, about what you should do, but I can’t talk right now.
In fact, I can’t breathe. But once I reach the top of this godforsaken hill and take
a little break, I’ll tell you everything I think.”

“You sure are stubborn, Hayley, but, okay, if you want me to ski on ahead, I will.
I’ll meet you at the top. I brought us a thermos of hot cider, spiked with rum, so
that should give you a little incentive to get your cute butt up there,” he said,
winking.

Then, like an Olympian, he glided forward, without a hint of effort, up and up, until
he was over the crest and gone.

Hayley gripped her poles and kept moving, inch by inch, making little progress, but
at least going in the right direction.

She was about halfway up when she heard a noise. Like an engine. It couldn’t be a
car. They were too far away from the road.

At least she wasn’t worried about Cassidy Culpepper coming for her again. That poor
girl was probably in bed nursing a killer hangover right about now.

The engine noise got louder and Hayley managed to twist her body around, keeping her
feet planted in the skis to see a snowmobile approaching.

It was barreling up the trail behind her. She couldn’t tell if it was a man or woman
straddling it, because the driver was bundled up in a bulky black winter coat, jeans,
black boots, hat, and goggles.

Still, her guess was it was a man.

Hayley smiled and waved, but she couldn’t tell if the driver was smiling back. He
just kept revving the engine and speeding toward her. Hayley lifted her left leg up
and awkwardly moved her ski close to the edge of the path, followed by the other leg,
to give the snowmobile enough room to get past her.

That’s when she noticed the snowmobile veer in her direction.

She couldn’t believe it.

Last night a drunken Cassidy Culpepper in her rental car, and now a renegade snowmobile.
She knew there was no way to outrun him. Her only option was to fall off to the side
and hope the snowmobile missed her.

She tumbled over, crashing through a low-lying branch and landing on her left hip,
as the snowmobile sped past her and up toward the top of the hill.

Although Cassidy was drunk and may not have intentionally been trying to run down
Hayley, this snowmobile was a completely different story. The driver spun the snowmobile
around and came flying back down the hill, taking direct aim at Hayley, who was lying
just a few feet off the path.

There was no way she could get out of the way this time—not while wearing a pair of
bulky skis. Hayley frantically reached over and unbuckled her boots from the skis,
freeing herself. Then she crawled to her feet and ran as fast as she could. Deep into
the woods. Finally hiding behind some trees out of sight.

The snowmobile slowed to a stop next to her abandoned skis.

Hayley poked her head around the tree to see the driver standing up on the running
board and looking around trying to catch sight of her.

She ducked back behind the tree and hid there, until she heard the driver finally
give up and drive off, back in the direction from which he came.

By the time Hayley trudged back over to her skis and was clicking her boots into place,
Lex came gliding back down the trail to find her.

“Hey, what happened to you? I thought you were trying to ditch me.”

Hayley was about to tell him what had just happened.

But then, something stopped her.

Lex would call the police and then Officer Donnie and everyone would make a big deal
about someone trying to run down Hayley Powell with a snowmobile in the park.

All the focus would be on her.

She couldn’t let that happen.

Not yet.

Not until she got a few more answers.

After Lex dropped Hayley off at Randy’s house, at around five in the evening, she
shuffled inside slowly, nursing an aching hip from her fall on the trail. She was
also still rubbing her throbbing jaw from the night before, when Cassidy Culpepper
decked her with that unexpected left hook. The injuries were piling up and she still
didn’t have any concrete answers to the murder.

She slowly sat down on Randy’s couch, cradling her laptop, ready to write her next
column, when she felt a dampness underneath her. Her pants absorbed a sticky wetness
just as the smell of urine wafted up into her nostrils.

Hayley groaned as she shot back up to her feet, forgetting about her hip and howling
as a sharp pain shot through her side.

That damn cat.

She glanced around, spotting the big blue ball of fur underneath an end table across
the room, glaring at Hayley with his narrow yellow eyes and emitting a low growl.

“You are on very thin ice, mister. So help me God, if you don’t shape up soon, I’m
going to take you to the vet myself and have him stick a needle in your side and put
you to sleep so you can never terrorize anybody ever again! Is that what you want?
Is it?”

Was she really threatening a cat?

Had it come to this?

And did she seriously expect Blueberry to answer her?

Blueberry didn’t seem to take her threats too seriously. He just flapped his tail
up and down, making the point that he was not at all impressed with her angry tone.

Hayley looked up and saw Leroy at the top of the stairs, quietly approaching the edge,
eyes wide open, his whole body slightly shaking. He glanced down to make sure the
coast was clear before he descended to the kitchen to eat his dinner. But the second
his paw hit the landing, Blueberry shot out from underneath the end table as fast
as his fat body could manage, hissing and clawing his way toward Leroy. Leroy yelped
and darted back up the stairs toward Randy’s bedroom.

Hayley wanted to help her poor little frightened dog, but she knew he would find a
safe spot out of Blueberry’s reach and just ride it out.

Right now, she needed to find something to clean the stain on the couch with before
Randy discovered it. She couldn’t let him find more evidence that Blueberry was destroying
his entire house. Randy just might poach the needle from the vet and put the cat down
himself.

As she searched the shelves in the pantry, her cell phone buzzed in her back pocket.
She pulled it out and checked the caller ID.

It was Gemma.

Finally something to brighten her day.

A call from her daughter.

Hayley answered the call. “Gemma?”

“Hi, Mom,” Gemma sighed, sounding like your average put-out teenager.

“You guys having fun?”

“Have you forgotten we’re in Des Moines? In the winter? If Dad’s Wi-Fi goes out—and
there’s a pretty good chance it will—because he’s having money problems again and
can’t pay all his bills, I will literally kill myself.”

“You’ve only got a few more days to go, so hang in there.”

Hayley made a mental note of her ex’s financial difficulties. That might mean he would
miss next month’s child support payment, and that would be a disaster for Hayley.
But no need to deal with that now.

“Dad’s working all the time, and his girlfriend, Becky, won’t leave me alone. She’s
trying to be my best friend, just because she’s only a few years older than me. But
we have nothing in common. She belongs to a knitting club, Mom. Yes, a knitting club.
I’m being totally serious.”

Hayley thought about joining one of those in town, too, hoping it might calm her mind
down by giving her something to focus on when life got too complicated.

Right now, for instance.

She had been spending all her time chasing clues to a local homicide and trying to
figure out how to fix a busted furnace before her kids came home from their dad’s—and
before they were all forced to bunk with Uncle Randy and Uncle Sergio until spring.
Hayley was already wearing out her welcome, and her rambunctious, independent-minded
kids showing up at the door would pretty much hit the fast-forward button on Randy’s
limit of generosity.

“Wait,” Hayley said, finally registering Gemma’s last few words. “Just how old is
your father’s new girlfriend?”

“Twenty-two,” Gemma said. “But she tries to act all mature when Dad’s around, because
she wants him to think she’s old enough for him to marry.”

“Wow, twenty-two. That’s really . . . young.”

There was little comfort in knowing her ex-husband hadn’t changed much. He always
liked them young. He met Hayley when she was young. And the day she turned thirty,
that’s when their marriage troubles began.

Coincidence?

“Yeah, so she knits and cooks and acts like some 1950s housewife. But then when Dad’s
at work, she’s bopping to Justin Bieber and begging me to let her streak my hair purple.
It’s kind of gross. I am
so
ready to come home!”

“Well, have you at least been able to spend time with your father?”

“Oh yeah. Tomorrow night we’re going to the Olive Garden. Oooh, rubbery pasta and
bottomless salad. Does life get any better than that?”

“You’re so sarcastic. Where did you get that from?”

“You, Mom.”

She knew Gemma was right.

So she decided to drop the subject.

“How’s your brother?”

“He’s right here. Hold on,” Gemma said, passing the phone. “It’s Mom.”

There was some muffled discussion before Dustin spoke into the phone. She could hear
the rat-a-tat-tat of machine-gun fire and the
ka-boom
of explosions in the background. He was obviously playing a high-stakes video game.

“Hey,” he said, distracted. It was pretty clear he didn’t want to risk a bad score
by having to talk to his mother.

“I miss you. I’m so looking forward to you coming home,” Hayley said.

And she meant it.

It was tough not having her kids around.

She would make a lot of noise about how she relished the idea of a break from them;
but when they were gone, she always quickly realized how much they worked as a unit
and how much she loved them.

“Uh-huh. Did Spanky come by to see you?” Dustin asked.

“Spanky?”

Spanky was a friend of Dustin’s since kindergarten. The two had grown up playing James
Bond in the backyard and still hung out, even though their social circles had widened
since starting freshman year of high school. Spanky also worked after school and on
weekends at the Shop ’n Save as a bag boy.

“No, Dustin, why would Spanky need to see me?”

“Beats me,” Dustin said; then in a surge of excitement, he screamed, “Yes!”

“Dustin, stop playing the video game and talk to me, would you, please?”

“Sorry,” Dustin said, the gunfire and explosions suddenly gone. “I got a Facebook
message from Spanky the other day asking me what time you go to work in the morning.
He said he wanted to drop something by your office on his way to school.”

“Well, he never came to the office. Do you have any idea what he was going to bring
me?”

“Nope.”

“Well, weren’t you the least bit curious?”

“Nope. Should I be?”

Gemma may have gotten her sarcasm from Hayley, but Dustin certainly didn’t get his
mother’s curious nature. Which was probably a good thing. She didn’t want him running
around town trying to solve murders after school, like his mother did after work.

It suddenly hit Hayley: the note in her in-box.

Could Spanky have written it and dropped it off before she arrived at the office for
work, around eight in the morning? And if Spanky did sneak into the office and leave
the note, then did that mean he really did know who killed Candace Culpepper?

She checked the clock on the wall.

It was late.

But she had to talk to the kid.

 

 

Once she wrapped up the call with Gemma and Dustin, Hayley looked up Carla McFarland’s
phone number.

“Hello?” a woman’s rushed voice said.

“Carla, it’s me, Hayley.”

Carla McFarland was Spanky’s mom and a fellow PTA member. She was in a perpetual state
of frenzy and always answered the phone out of breath and annoyed she had to take
time out of her personal chaos to talk.

“Hayley, you wouldn’t believe the day I had.”

And she was off and running. Ten minutes of how awful the winter had been, how she
hated her job, how her husband was traveling too much and never around, how her youngest
child, Spanky, was constantly getting himself into trouble, and how she didn’t know
how much more of this she could possibly take.

Hayley indulged her, letting her prattle on, knowing that at some point she would
get tired and finally stop talking. Just when it felt like Carla was about to wind
down, she said abruptly, “Hayley, it’s been great talking to you, but I really have
to go—”

“Carla, wait! I was hoping I could speak with Spanky.”

“Why do you need to talk to Spanky?” she said, finally allowing the conversation to
move off her.

“Well, as you know, Dustin is at his dad’s in Iowa, and I just wanted to make sure
there wasn’t any homework he was missing.”

“But the kids are on winter break.”

“Yes, but Dustin missed the last few days before school recessed, and I’m afraid he
won’t be up to speed when he gets back and starts classes next week.”

She seemed to buy it.

“Okay, hold on, Hayley. I’ll get him. Nice talking to you and catching up and hearing
what’s going on in your life.”

Hayley hadn’t said one word about her life at any point during the ten-minute call.

“Spanky! Pick up the phone! It’s Mrs. Powell. She wants to talk to you!”

She heard muffled yelling as Carla covered the mouthpiece with her hand. Hayley could
still make out enough words to know Spanky did not want to take the call. But Carla
was insisting. Finally, after almost a minute of back-and-forth yelling, Hayley heard
a
click
as Spanky picked up the other extension.

“Hi, Mrs. Powell,” he said shyly.

“I’m hanging up now, Hayley,” Carla said. “Let’s have coffee soon. Be polite, Spanky.
Mrs. Powell will tell me if you cop an attitude. You hear me?”

“Yeah, okay, Mom.”

“We’re on winter break, so there’s no homework. My mother already told you that,”
Spanky said, immediately copping an attitude.

“No homework at all? Not even penmanship?”

“Penmanship? Mrs. Powell, we haven’t had that class since the second grade.”

“Well, a little refresher course wouldn’t hurt you, Spanky. You have plenty of room
for improvement. Or did you just scribble that note like a child to hide the fact
it was you if anyone, like the police, decided to check the handwriting?”

There was a long pause on the other end of the line.

“You didn’t think Dustin would mention to me that you were asking when I arrive at
the office in the morning? How did you know I wouldn’t be there? I might have shown
up at the office early that day and caught you?”

“Because Dustin is always saying how you can never get your act together and be on
time for anything, especially work.”

Note to self. Ask kids not to spread the word they have a disorganized and tardy mother.

“It was you, wasn’t it, Spanky?”

Another long pause.

“Not answering my questions isn’t very polite, Spanky. Should we get your mother back
on the line?”

“No! Please! Okay, okay. Yes, I left the note.”

“Why would you write that you know who killed Candace Culpepper?”

“Because I
do
know.”

“I’m listening.”

“You have to promise me that you won’t say I told you. I’m getting my driver’s license
next summer and I’m saving for a moped, so I can’t risk getting fired from my job
at the supermarket.”

“You have my word, Spanky. I didn’t hear this from you. Now tell me.”

She could hear Spanky take a deep breath. Then he spoke softly, almost too softly.
She had to strain to hear what he was saying.

“The day someone stabbed Mrs. Culpepper, I was doing a price check in the household
cleaners aisle for Bethany, the cashier. It was near closing time and Mrs. Alley was
checking out, and she is always tearing the price tag off everything and then insisting
things are on sale, when they’re not. So I always have to go and get another bottle
of something or other to prove to her we’re charging her the right price. It gets
so annoying—”

“Spanky, please get to the point.”

“So, anyway, as I was going to find the price of some Windex, I saw Ms. Culpepper
by the mops and brooms and she was having a really big fight with Ron.”

Ron Hopkins. The owner of the Shop ’n Save.

“What were they fighting about?”

“I don’t know. But Ms. Culpepper was laughing at Ron and then he told her that he
was going to kill her. That made her stop laughing, and it was kind of quiet for a
second, and then Ron looked up and saw me. And then his eyes were really scary and
he screamed at me to get back up front, so I dropped the bottle of Windex and hightailed
it out of there. And then the next morning, I heard from my mother that someone had
stabbed Ms. Culpepper in the back.”

“So, why did you just write me a mysterious note and not bother to tell me what you
knew?”

“I didn’t get the chance to finish. The door to your office was open and I was writing
you that note because I know how you’re always sticking your nose into creepy stuff
like murder that’s really none of your business. . . .”