Flipped Out (22 page)

“Anything else come to mind?” Wayne had pulled out his little notebook and was scratching in it.

Nina hesitated. Just for a second, but I noticed. So did Wayne. He leveled a stare at her. She buckled. “I wondered . . .”

“Yes?”

“The first letter arrived just a few days after the accident.”

“Accident?” Wayne said.

“Stuart’s accident?” I asked. Nina nodded.

Wayne looked from one to the other of us. “Who’s Stuart and what happened to him?”

Nina explained. Her explanation matched Wilson’s in every particular. Wayne, however, was not happy. “Why didn’t I hear about this?” he demanded.

Nina glanced at me. I shrugged. “I guess no one thought it was important. You have enough to deal with, with Tony’s death.”

“Besides,” Nina added, “there’s no possible connection between them. Stuart never met Tony, or heard his name, even. And what happened to him was an accident. Totally unforeseen and tragic, but an accident.”

“But you knew both of them,” Wayne said. “That’s a connection.”

Nina blanched. “What are you saying?”

Wayne got right back in her face. “That two men close to you have met with violence in the past few weeks, and that from what you’re saying, it sounds as if Stuart was lucky he didn’t die as well.”

“So?”

“So it’s a connection. And something I needed to hear. You can’t possibly know what’s connected and what’s not. You should have told me.”

“Sorry,” I said, since I’d known about Stuart, too, and hadn’t thought to tell Wayne, either.

“So when the letter came just after Stuart’s accident”—Wayne brought the conversation back on track—“you thought that perhaps the writer was accusing you of having had something to do with it?”

Nina shrugged. “It crossed my mind.”

“And did you?”

She looked offended. “Of course not! I liked Stuart. He was a joy to work with, and he made
Flipped Out!
what it is today. We would never have let him go voluntarily. As it is, we’re all hoping he’ll make a full recovery and come back.”

“That’s not likely, is it?”

Nina shook her head. “But I’m not going to start a search for a new host until I have to. We’ll just have to put up with Adam for the time being.” She turned to me. “I’m sorry he keeps botching your name. But he photographs like a dream, and the camera loves him. I’m sure that knowledge doesn’t make it any easier for you, but for now, we’ll just have to deal.”

Wayne cleared his throat. “Would you mind letting me see the letter you have in your bag?”

Nina looked surprised, and her eyes flickered to the letter in Wayne’s hand.

“This isn’t it,” Wayne said as Nina dug into her purse to make sure he was telling the truth. She came out a second later with her own envelope, still unopened.

“You tricked me!”

Wayne shrugged unapologetically. “Not really. You just assumed it was yours. Fear, I’d guess, and perhaps a bit of guilty conscience?”

Nina didn’t answer. Wayne added, “Open it, please. I’d like to compare it to this one.”

“It’ll look exactly the same,” Nina said, as she tore at the envelope with long fingernails. “All the others did.”

“I’d still like to see it. If you’ll allow.”

“It’s not going to do me any good to refuse, is it? Here you go.” She handed him the letter from her purse, without even glancing at it. It did indeed look identical to the one Wayne already had in his hand.

“May I keep it?” he asked.

“Sure. I burned the others, but they were all exactly like this, too. I was going to burn this one.”

“And you have no idea who’s sending them to you? The postmark says Missouri.”

Nina shook her head. “I don’t know anyone in Missouri. It’s more than twenty years since I worked there for just a few months, and I didn’t make any connections in the community. As for my coworkers, we’re all over the map now. It was the kind of midsize market that’s a stepping stone to bigger and better, and we’ve all moved on.”

For a second, it looked like she was going to add something, but she must have changed her mind. “Sorry I can’t be more help.”

“That’s all right,” Wayne said. “Thank you.”

Nina nodded and turned halfway around. Then she turned back. “Just out of curiosity . . . if that isn’t my letter, whose is it? Is someone else on the crew getting them, too? Because then, maybe it
does
have something to do with Stuart’s accident.”

“I’m afraid not,” Wayne said, shaking his head. “This arrived here, for Tony.”

When Nina just gaped at him, he added, “Give it some thought, would you? And if you can come up with something that happened in Missouri that involved you and him, perhaps you’ll be so kind as to let me know?”

He didn’t wait for an answer, just walked off across the grass again. I smiled apologetically to Nina and followed.

Wayne stopped by Kate’s side and watched her work for a few seconds before he stated his intention to go back to the police station. “I’ll have to have Brandon do fingerprints on these. I doubt he’ll find anything, but it has to be done.”

“Brandon said he was going to stop by the Waymouth Tavern last night,” I said. “To see if anyone remembered Nina and Tony eating there. Do you know if he did?”

“He didn’t,” Wayne said. “We got busy with Melissa last night, so he didn’t have time. I’ll remind him to do it tonight, when they open.”

“No need. I’ll get Derek to take me there for dinner. I’ll let you know what they say.”

“You know I can’t take your word for it. . . .” Wayne began, and then he admitted defeat. “Sure, Avery. Do what you want.”

“Dinner at home?” Kate asked, batting her eyes up at him. “Just the two of us? I’ll make enchiladas.”

“Great.” Wayne relaxed, grinning. Shannon looked up.

“I forgot. I’m going out tonight, too. At eight. That’s OK, isn’t it?”

“Sure,” Kate said. “If anyone has an emergency, they can walk across the grass to the carriage house to find me. You go out and have a good time, honey.”

“Thanks.” Shannon grinned. Adam must be growing on her if she could smile like that at the thought of going out with him.

So Wayne headed back to his police cruiser, and I headed back to work. For about an hour, until it was time for lunch. Fae had found the circular from the pizza parlor, and she had ordered a half dozen pizzas to be delivered. “Expense account,” she said when I thanked her. “It seems the least we can do after bringing all this trouble your way.”

“Don’t be silly.” I smiled at her. “None of this is your fault. You just came here to do your job. It’s not like
you
killed Tony.”

Fae shook her head, her lips tight. “I didn’t even know him. Just met him that one time on Monday. It has to be a coincidence that he was killed just when we got here. Don’t you think?”

“I’m sure it was,” I said, although it would have to be a huge coincidence, if so. That didn’t necessarily mean that anyone on the crew had killed him, of course. Their arrival could have precipitated the murder in other ways. I kept coming back to Melissa. Maybe Tony had carried a torch for Nina for twenty years, and now that he had seen her again, he’d known he couldn’t possibly go through with marrying Melissa. Maybe little Miss Melly had gotten her nose out of joint when he took Nina to dinner. Maybe she had followed the two of them. When he dropped Nina off, she had gotten his attention and they’d ended up here at the house. And when he told her he couldn’t go through with the marriage, Melissa had gone for the screwdriver. And then she’d panicked. And she had gotten Derek to come upstairs to her loft and had kept him there half the night, thinking it would give her an alibi.

No wonder Wayne had arrested her and refused to let her go. If I’d been in charge, I would have arrested her, too.

But what had she done with the murder weapon? There was no ocean between Cabot Street and Main that she could have dropped it in, and if Brandon had gone over her apartment and her car . . .

“What are you thinking?” Fae asked, from far away. I shook myself and managed a smile.

“Nothing. Or at least nothing pleasant. Hey, listen—”

“Yes?”

“You seem to have known Stuart well. Can you think of any reason anyone would have wanted him dead? Or out of the way?”

Fae turned pale. “What a horrible thing to say!”

“Sorry. It’s just that two bad things have happened recently to people associated with this show, and I thought maybe you could think of something. Like, a rival show is trying to get
Flipped Out!
off the air or something.”

“That kind of stuff just happens on TV,” Fae said. “I can’t think of anyone who would have wanted to hurt Stuart. He was a really sweet guy, very humble, not full of himself at all.”

Unlike Adam, then.

“There was nothing going on in his personal life that I know of. He didn’t really have one. No girlfriend or wife. The crew is on the road so much . . .”

“Were you there when it happened?”

“Oh, yes.” She shuddered. “It was horrible. At first I thought he was dead. Electricity shot right through his body, and made his hair stick straight up. He convulsed and everything.” She swallowed. “Ted ran to turn off the breaker, and when the electricity went off, Stuart fell all in a heap. And we were afraid to touch him, you know?”

I nodded. Derek had lectured me on electric shock, because it’s one of the possible hazards of home renovation, and he had told me that a current can be passed from body to body. After the power has been turned off, there’s no danger, though.

“Then Ted came back and he kept Stuart alive until the paramedics got there,” Fae said. “They said he’d been lucky, and that if Ted hadn’t given him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, he probably would have died.” There were tears in her eyes now.

“Are you sure it was an accident? That someone didn’t turn the power back on deliberately?”

“I don’t know,” Fae said, with a helpless shrug of her thin shoulders. “Everyone just assumed it was an accident. That both the renovators thought the other one had turned the power off when really, no one had. I just can’t imagine why anyone would want to hurt Stuart. He was the sweetest guy in the world!”

Tears were rolling down her cheeks now, and I felt like an enormous jerk for making her cry. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’ll . . . um . . . just go tell everyone that lunch is here, OK?”

“OK.” Fae sniffed, wiping at her cheeks. I made myself scarce.

The pizza was on the porch, and a few minutes later, everyone was out there eating. Derek, Kate, and I sat down on the porch steps. Shannon, meanwhile, took her pizza back to the plastic sheet in the yard and was eating there. After a minute or two, Josh joined her. Fae had latched on to her uncle, and they were standing at the other end of the porch talking in low voices. Fae still seemed teary.

“What’s going on there?” Kate asked me, with a toss of her head.

I made a face. “I upset her. Nina said she originally thought those letters she’s been getting might have had something to do with what happened to Stuart, the former host of the show. He was electrocuted when he stepped on a live wire, and I suggested to Fae that maybe someone had staged the accident. She didn’t like that idea.”

“I don’t like it, either,” Derek said. When I turned to him, he added, “If it could happen at someone else’s worksite, it could happen here. Maybe someone will try to get rid of Adam.”

We all turned to Adam, who looked like a male model—for pizza—standing in the front yard, sleeves rolled up to the shoulders so the sun could gild all his visible muscles. I was surprised he hadn’t taken his shirt off entirely. But maybe he was just trying to maintain his tan, and not, in fact, trying to show off his assets.

Or maybe he was trying to listen in on Nina and Ted’s conversation. They were over by the fence, where Nina had stood earlier, when Wayne and I talked to her.

“Josh said murders come in twos,” I remarked, “although he seemed to think Nina was the next logical victim.”

Derek looked at me, brows raised. I ran through it for him while Kate nodded.

“If that’s the case,” Derek said, “we ought to be safe. If Stuart was the first intended victim, then Tony was the second, and we shouldn’t have any more.”

I hadn’t thought about it like that. “That’s actually promising.”

He shrugged. “That’s if you’re right and there’s a connection. What happened to Stuart might have been an accident.”

“Nina doesn’t think so,” I said, watching her holding forth to Ted, her hands waving and her face intent. He was listening and nodding.

“Well, I’m not sure there’s anything we can do except wait and see. And take precautions. From here on out, I’m checking everything myself. Twice.” He got up to get another slice of pizza out of the box. “Avery? Kate?”

I shook my head. “I’ve had enough, thank you.” Kate nodded, her mouth full.