Grounds for Murder (12 page)

‘Where in the world did you hear that?’ I demanded.

‘How else do you explain getting to the scene of the fire so fast?’

‘Who said I was there?’ I was hoping the woman was just fishing for information.

‘The police scanner.’ Kate stirred her Diet Pepsi and housebrand.

Great. The police were talking about me over the radio. Why? Because I was a suspect, or because I was the sheriff’s girlfriend?

Which brought up an interesting dilemma: did I admit to Kate that I was with Pavlik when the call came in? It would answer her question. It would also open us up to whatever speculation that caused.

I decided to stonewall for now. ‘I saw the fire trucks on my way home,’ I fibbed. ‘I just followed them.’

‘Your way home from―’

‘What fire are we talking about?’ Jerome asked.

‘Janalee’s Place.’ Grateful for the interruption, I explained.

‘They’re sure it was arson?’ Jerome asked when I was done.

‘That’s what my sources tell me,’ Kate interjected mysteriously. Since both Janalee and LaRoche were talking openly about the arson, Kate’s source was probably as mysterious as this morning’s paper.

I said as much.

Kate sniffed. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. This came from the horse’s mouth – your horse’s mouth.’ She looked expectantly at me.

‘Who?’ I asked, cautious.

‘Your squeeze,’ she tried.

When I still didn’t bite, she rolled her eyes. ‘Stop playing stupid. I mean the sheriff, you idiot.’

Oh. Him.

After drinks, I returned to the competition room. I’d been so upset after my encounter with LaRoche earlier, that I’d forgotten to check on the trophies in preparation for tomorrow’s finals. I could do it in the morning, but this way I didn’t have to arrive so early.

And I needed to get a good night’s sleep tonight. I’d let Kate get to me and probably had a glass or two more wine than I really needed.

I wondered what Pavlik had told her. I assumed that it was merely that the fire was arson. I was certain he wouldn’t say anything implicating me. I also couldn’t imagine him saying something about our being together.

If he had, Kate would have been blabbing about that, too. And there was nothing I could do about it.

I turned my attention to the trophies. I could make them, at least, bend to my will. The awards were grouped in the middle of the table so I spaced them out, leaving the first-place trophy in the center. Then, pulling down a corner of the tablecloth that was flipped up, I surveyed the scene.

I still wasn’t happy with the first-place trophy, which Sarah had promptly dubbed ‘Slut in a cup’ after today’s unveiling. There was nothing I could do about that either, though. And the five runner-up trophies were just fine. I checked my watch – nearly twelve fifteen. T-minus nine hours, forty five minutes. Time to go home.

I wasn’t staying nights at the convention hotel, since home was so close by. Besides Frank needed me and, honestly, there were some nights I needed Frank.

This was one of them.

I also could have used a little Pavlik, even if I was unhappy he’d found time to tell the town crier about the arson. And not tell his . . . whatever I was.

But a girl always has her dog, thank God. When I got home, I flopped down on the couch and snuggled my toes into Frank’s thick fur. Then I looked at the phone. Should I call Pavlik and just ask him about Kate? Tell him what people were saying?

Probably not. My experience with authority – legal authority – was that what seems common knowledge may not be. Just because people were gossiping, didn’t mean that Pavlik knew it.

So why would I tell him and possibly implicate myself?

Because there was a part of me that wanted Pavlik to assure me everything was OK, of course. That daddy – or husband, or boyfriend – would take care of me. But I’d found out when Ted left me that the person best-suited to taking care of me was me.

In just a few hours, I needed to preside over the finals of the barista competition and the awarding of the trophies. I had to get through that before I did anything else.

I leaned down and gave Frank a good scratch behind the ear. ‘Tomorrow, Frank. I’ll give Pavlik a call tomorrow after the competition. But not to tell him what I know, but to find out what he knows.’

Chapter Thirteen

Tomorrow was, as Scarlett O’Hara said, another day. It just wasn’t the day I expected.

Saturday dawned bright and early. But then what day doesn’t? Sure, some dawns are brighter than others, but they’re all lighter than the night.

Or are they?

Because here I was, standing over the body of Marvin LaRoche. Murder weapon in one hand, blood on the other.

‘Call 911,’ I said.

Chapter Fourteen

On TV, the first cop to arrive on the scene would be the handsome love interest, Pavlik.

But this was cable access, so what we got were rent-a-cops from the convention center. There were three of them. One was fat, one was skinny and one was just right.

‘Can’t you get her to stop that?’ the big rent-a-cop asked, hitching up his pants.

‘What?’ Sarah asked, looking over her shoulder at Janalee. ‘The screaming or the crying?’

‘I’d take either,’ the cop muttered and walked away to talk on his giant walkie-talkie.

‘Would it be against type for him to be talking on a little flip-phone?’ I asked Sarah.

I was very busy thinking about all things inconsequential. Which was pretty much everything except Marvin LaRoche’s body. That didn’t bear thinking about.

‘Probably,’ she said. ‘Image is everything when you’re a rent-a-cop.’

‘I suppose.’ We were sitting on two of the judges’ chairs, waiting for the authorities. I looked down at my hand. ‘I really, really want to wash the blood off.’

‘Don’t blame you. Looks like it’s going bad.’

Sarah was right. The blood was turning brown. Crusty brown with red and white flecks. Yuck. ‘I think I’m going to be sick. Is that white gunk brain matter?’

Sarah leaned in a little closer. ‘Nah. Look, it’s fuzzy. Like it’s growing something.’

I couldn’t look. I was afraid I was going to get sick. ‘Aren’t the CSI people supposed to be here? Taking samples with cotton swabs and squeeze bottles? And then letting me frickin’ wash?’

‘Only on TV,’ Sarah said, taking a puff on her nicotine inhaler. ‘I have a friend whose husband disappeared. I guess the guy’s body was found in Idaho a week later, but she didn’t find out for nearly a year.’

That didn’t seem right. ‘But what about DNA and databases and all?’ I asked, happy to be distracted from whatever was growing on the Petri dish that used to be my hand.

‘Like I said, that’s just on TV. She said they can’t do DNA for everybody because crime labs are under funded. And even when they do, it takes a long time to get results because there’s a backlog because they’re also understaffed.’

‘That’s awful.’ I looked down at my hand. ‘I think I’m going to throw up.’

‘Concentrate on something else.’

‘Like what? The body on the floor? The fact it’s LaRoche, my arch-enemy, who accused me of stealing his barista last night? Or maybe that I touched the murder weapon and now have the victim’s blood on my hand?’

‘Last night? What happened last night?’ Sarah asked, choosing to ignore the rest of my ramblings.

‘I had an argument with LaRoche.’

Sarah looked heavenward, but I continued. ‘Listen, his barista and his wife were finalists, and he was head judge. The right thing to do was recuse himself. I was just trying to get him to see the light.’

‘So you won.’ Sarah cocked her head toward the body. ‘LaRoche not only saw the light, he went toward the light.’

Any other time I would have laughed at that. Drying blood on your hand and a dead man on your stage impairs your sense of humor. I watched as the EMTS finally arrived. They were hurrying, but not save-a-life hurrying. More like make-sure-he’s-dead hurrying.

‘So did anyone else hear the argument?’ Sarah asked.

‘No, thank God. No one was there to hear.’

‘Not last night, at least.’ Sarah stuck her puffer back in her pocket.

‘What do you mean?’ I looked around.

Kate and Jerome were busy following the EMTs with the camera. Jill still had her lens trained on the body, and the audience and judges had been herded to the far side of the hall. Amy, Janalee and Davy were sitting quietly in the corner with the other contestants.

‘There’s nobody to hear me,’ I said.

‘You do know you have your mic on, right?’

A Lavaliere microphone was pinned to my sweater. I thought it would be easier than using the hand-held for the finals. Was it truly on? Had everyone heard what I was saying?

Trying to seem nonchalant, I glanced toward the knot of people on the other side of the room. Henry and Sophie waved back. Oh, God.

I jumped up and went to pull off the microphone. ‘My bloody hand – I can’t touch the microphone,’ I whispered urgently to Sarah. ‘You have to get it off.’

‘You sound like something out of a British horror movie,’ she said, snickering. She grasped the wrist of one of her hands with the other, like she trying to keeping it from attacking. ‘My hand, my bloody hand – get it off, get it off!’

‘Will you shut up?’ I hissed. ‘This isn’t funny.’

Sarah just cocked her head.

No help apparently forthcoming from her, I managed to pull the clip-on microphone off with my left hand. I was still tangled in the wire that ran inside my sweater to the pack positioned at the back of my waist.

‘The on/off switch is on the pack,’ I said. ‘Can you reach it?’ I was trying to get at it with my left arm, but it didn’t seem to bend that way.

‘Can I help?’ a familiar voice said.

I hadn’t noticed the cavalry – in the form of a cadre of sheriff’s deputies – arrive, but I sure was happy to see them. And the sheriff, himself.

I turned to Pavlik. ‘I’m so glad you’re here. Can you turn this microphone off?’

Pavlik looked quizzically at me, but he checked the pack. ‘It is off.’

I threw Sarah a dirty look, and she grinned. ‘Got your mind off throwing up, didn’t I?’

I was at a loss for words. The thought that Sarah had been torturing me in order to be kind was staggering. And a little sick.

Pavlik nodded toward my hand. ‘Blood?’

‘It isn’t my blood,’ I said, though at this point I kind of wished it was. Your own blood was bad enough, but somebody else’s blood drying on your hand? That was downright creepy.

‘There was blood on the tablecloth, and I accidentally put my hand in it,’ I explained in a rush. ‘The little rent-a-cop said I couldn’t wash it. Which I knew, of course, from TV, but I was getting a little crazy, what with the blood getting –’ I looked down at my hand – ‘crusty and all.’ I gagged.

Pavlik took my arm and sat me back down. ‘Before you fall down.’ He waved a deputy over. ‘Can you ask the crime scene guys if they need to take a sample of this blood?’

If?

Of course they were going to take a sample. How else could the police mistakenly send me to prison, where I would be Big Bertha’s girlfriend until I was finally freed by a criminal justice class some twenty years later?

I was the star of my very own made-for-TV movie.

Pavlik knelt down in front of me. ‘They’re probably going to take a sample, just to confirm it’s the same as on the tablecloth and the trophy.’

‘There was no blood on the trophy,’ I said. ‘And I should know. After all, I was the one caught brandishing it over the body, just like in the movies.’

‘From what I hear,’ Pavlik said, ‘two hundred people saw you pick it up.’

‘Maybe she picked it up to cover the fact her fingerprints were already on it,’ Sarah said helpfully.

‘I’m not that smart,’ I growled.

‘There is that.’ Sarah was mulling it over.

‘The killer tried to wipe off the trophy.’ Pavlik apparently had decided to move the conversation along. ‘But the felt fabric on the bottom caught quite a bit of blood.’

I nodded. I was holding my hand out to the side, trying to keep it beyond my peripheral vision.

‘They’ll need your fingerprints, too,’ he continued.

‘To eliminate me?’ I squeaked.

‘Sure,’ Pavlik said, sounding preoccupied. He’d stood up and was looking over at the trophy. ‘Just what is that supposed to be?’

‘What does it look like?’ Sarah asked before I could answer.

‘A big-breasted woman in a hot tub?’ Pavlik hazarded.

‘Close,’ I said dryly. ‘A barista in a coffee cup.’

‘OK, I can see that.’ Pavlik squinted. ‘And the two . . .’ He cupped his hands.

‘Headlights,’ Sarah supplied.

‘Right,’ Pavlik said. ‘They’ll likely fit the indentations on LaRoche’s forehead.’ He pointed toward the body.

I cleared my throat. ‘Listen, are those crime scene guys going to be coming soon?’ I asked, holding up my hand.

‘Yup. Sorry.’ Pavlik waved over a man with a toolbox.

‘You’re looking a little green,’ Sarah said as she moved aside to let the guy in.

‘She’ll be fine.’ Pavlik crouched back down in front of me. ‘Just let Jim here –’ he gestured to the tech – ‘take a sample and fingerprint you.’

‘And then can I wash my hand?’ I asked.

‘Yes, then you can wash your hand,’ Pavlik said gently. ‘Now I need to talk to the rest of the people here.’

As Pavlik stood up, I grabbed his arm. With the clean hand. ‘Listen, someone may tell you that Amy – she was the manager of Janalee’s Place, you’ll remember – is coming to work for Caron and me, and that’s true.’

‘OK.’ He started to move away.

I tightened my grip. ‘They also may tell you that I burned down Janalee’s Place.’

Pavlik’s jaw dropped.

‘But that’s not true,’ I added hastily.

‘Good,’ he said, looking a trifle dazed. ‘That’s good.’ And he walked away.

Swabbed, fingerprinted and washed, I went into the exhibit hall in search of a friendly face, preferably one that wasn’t actively gossiping about me.

‘Maybe I’m being paranoid,’ I said to Kate, who also had been tossed out of the crime scene. We were walking down the main aisle of the exhibit hall. ‘I feel like everyone is looking and whispering.’