Sentenced to Death (5 page)

That seemed wrong on so many levels.

Elizabeth sniffed again, turning to look down on her grandson. “Any day now, Davey’s going to figure out how to scale that barrier, and then I don’t know what I’ll do. I can’t watch him
and
run the store.”

“I thought Deborah had hired help.”

“I had to let Cheryl go. Until I know what’ll happen with the store, I can’t afford to spend money foolishly.”

Tricia remembered a conversation she’d had with Mr. Everett earlier in the summer. He’d been willing to help out at Deborah’s store. She imagined he’d be even more eager to help out now. Back in June, he’d won the New Hampshire Powerball lottery and had since been hounded by people looking for handouts. “I spoke to Deborah at the beginning of the summer about loaning her one of my employees at no cost to her. That offer’s still open.”

Instead of replying, Elizabeth leapt forward and hugged Tricia once again. “Thank you. I don’t know how I can ever repay you, but I’ll gladly take you up on it.”

Tricia pulled back. “As it happens, Mr. Everett is looking for a change of scenery in the short term. This should work out well for both of you.”

Elizabeth managed a weak smile. “Thank you for being Deborah’s friend. She always spoke well of you.”

Tricia fought back a tear. “I’m glad I can help.” She swallowed hard, trying to appear strong. “I’d better get going. I have a store to run.”

Elizabeth nodded. “Thank you for stopping by. And thank you for sending Mr. Everett. I can sure use the help.”

She walked Tricia to the door and closed it behind her.

Tricia looked right and left, intending to cross the street, then noticed someone standing within the cordoned-off village square. The NTSB investigator? There was only one way to find out. Tricia struck off for the park.

The carnival rides and other equipment had already vacated the small park, leaving behind trampled grass and scattered litter. Tricia paused on the sidewalk to watch as a man with a clipboard walked the perimeter of the park. He jotted down a note and then raised the camera that had been slung around his neck. “Hello,” she called.

The man looked up.

“Are you the NTSB investigator?”

The man frowned, and his gaze shifted suspiciously. “Why do you ask?”

Tricia’s gaze moved to the rut in the ground where the plane had ripped up the sod before coming to rest. “My friend was killed here yesterday.”

The man stepped closer. “Mrs. Black?”

Tricia nodded, and held out her hand. “I’m Tricia Miles. I run the mystery bookstore here in the village—Haven’t Got a Clue.”

The man shook on it. “Steve Marsden. Sorry about your loss.” The words were mechanical, what everyone who deals with the bereaved is trained to say. Still, Tricia appreciated hearing them said.

“Have you determined what happened?” she asked.

Marsden’s cell phone rang. “Hang on a minute. I’ve got to take this call,” he said, opened the phone, and turned away. “Yeah, what have you got for me . . . ?”

Tricia sighed. He wasn’t going to get away without answering some of her questions. She turned, looking for one of the benches that wasn’t within the roped off perimeter, and saw Cheryl Griffin sitting on one. Tears streamed from beneath the woman’s glasses. She held a damp tissue against her nose, her gaze focused on the bare patch of ground where the plane had come to a sudden halt the day before.

Tricia felt herself drawn to the grieving woman, who’d worked for Deborah for the past month or so. She didn’t know her well but had met her a couple of times when she’d stopped in the Happy Domestic. “Cheryl,” she called softly. “Are you okay?”

Cheryl looked up. “Tricia?”

Tricia sat down next to her. “Can I help?”

“Not unless you’ve got a job opening.”

The question caused a chill to run down Tricia’s neck. “Sorry, not right now.”

Cheryl nodded and blew her nose. “I talked to every bookseller on Main Street before Deborah hired me. I doubt they have openings, either. Deborah could only afford to pay me minimum wage, but at least it was money coming in, you know?”

Tricia nodded, feeling sorry for the thin, pitiable woman—and a little guilty. She had to be about the same age as Tricia. Deborah had commented that she had little in the way of marketable job skills, but that she was better than having no one working with her at the Happy Domestic.

Maybe it was the ill-fitting clothes Cheryl wore or her slouching posture and too-large glasses that screamed “GEEK!” But then Tricia could identify with that. She’d worn glasses for years before undergoing Lasik eye surgery, and she’d been branded a nerd by the more popular girls in high school, who wouldn’t have been caught dead reading for pleasure, let alone reading vintage mysteries. Thankfully, she’d blossomed in college, where nobody seemed to care much about what she read or did. She doubted Cheryl had ever visited the halls of higher education.

“Is there a reason you don’t look for a job in Nashua or even in Milford?” Tricia asked.

“Oh, yeah—a big reason. I don’t have a car. The Bank of Stoneham repossessed it in April after I lost my job at Shaw’s in Nashua and couldn’t make the payments.”

Tricia refrained from asking why Cheryl had been let go. Probably just the slowdown in the economy. Lots of establishments had had to trim staff. She was glad she hadn’t had to do that.

“I’ve got three weeks to find something before my rent is due,” Cheryl continued. “It’s too bad they don’t pay you for blood anymore. That, I have plenty of. And I haven’t got anything left that I can sell after all I’ve been through this past year.”

Tricia swallowed and felt guilty because she was so well off, without a financial care in the world. And yet, bailing out Cheryl would only be a temporary solution. Should she offer her help, or would Cheryl take it as an insult?

“You know why there’s a problem finding jobs?” Cheryl said with a knowing nod of the head. “Illegal aliens took them all. I heard on TV that there are millions of them living among us right here in the US of A. All I can say is, they’ve got really good disguises, ’cuz I haven’t seen any that look like ET or Vulcans or Klingons or nothin’.”

Tricia covered her mouth with her hand, trying to keep a straight face, because it was evident Cheryl was dead serious. “I don’t think the news media was talking about extraterrestrials.”

“I don’t care what they’ve got extra—I just don’t want them to capture me and encase me in carbonite or make me a slave, mining borate on some distant planet.”

“Ohhh-kay,” Tricia said, and realized how Deborah had gotten away with paying Cheryl only minimum wage. The poor woman was clueless, if not delusional. She’d never be able to appreciate the clever puzzles laid in most mysteries. Heck, had she even read a Nancy Drew novel?

Tricia let her gaze wander back to the investigator stomping through the square’s grassy expanse. Finally, Marsden folded his phone and looked back down at the clipboard in his hand.

“If you’ll excuse me, I need to speak to the NTSB investigator,” Tricia said, grateful for a chance to escape.

“The who?” Cheryl asked.

Tricia pointed at the man across the way. “Him.”

Cheryl stood. “Thanks for talking to me, Tricia. I feel better now. Maybe I’ll call the unemployment office to see if anyone in Stoneham has posted a job.”

Tricia patted Cheryl’s arm. “Good luck.” She watched as Cheryl headed down the sidewalk and turned left, heading out of town on foot, and then Tricia marched across the lawn to catch up with Marsden once again.

“Mr. Marsden!” she called. He looked at her as if he’d forgotten they’d met only minutes before. Again, she introduced herself and repeated her question. “Have you determined what happened?”

Marsden stared at her. “Ma’am, it’s been less than twenty-four hours since the crash. It’ll be months before I make my final report.”

“I realize that,” Tricia said. “I mean, does it look like it was strictly pilot error?”

“I’ve hardly had a chance to gather many facts, let alone make that kind of determination.”

Tricia pursed her lips. She should have known better than to expect any answers from a federal bureaucrat.

“Months, you say?” she tried again.

He nodded, looking a little bored.

Tricia sighed. It was no use even trying to engage the man in conversation. “I’ll let you get back to your work.”

“Thank you.” He turned without acknowledging her further and again consulted his clipboard.

Tricia turned and headed back for Haven’t Got a Clue.

Months
. It could take months before a determination was made about the accident.

Tricia felt heat rise from her neck to color her cheeks. Maybe she was impatient, but she didn’t want to wait that long to hear whatever it was Steve Marsden and the NTSB had to say about the crash. What kind of idiot of a pilot lets his plane run out of gas? And just because Russ said it happened all the time didn’t mean it happened to Monty Capshaw. He wasn’t a kid, and presumably he’d been flying for years without incident.

Bob Kelly had to know something about the man. After all, he’d hired him. Tricia reversed course and started north once again, heading for Kelly Realty. Bob had to know a lot more than he’d admitted the afternoon before. Somehow Tricia was going to have to get him to talk.

Or else.

Bob Kelly’s
car was parked in front of his real estate office, but the locked door and CLOSED sign hanging in the window indicated he wasn’t in. Tricia backtracked two doors down to the log cabin that housed the Stoneham Chamber of Commerce. Bob had been its president for at least a decade and often held court there. As owner of most of the real estate on Main Street, he controlled the rents and was the recipient of most of the prosperity that had come to Stoneham.

Prim, proper, and middle-aged Betsy Dittmeyer, the Chamber’s secretary for almost eighteen months, was not as friendly as her predecessor, Frannie May Armstrong. Nor was she a fount of useful information. A stickler for rules and regulations, she seemed to have memorized the Chamber’s bylaws, as well as some receptionist’s handbook, and played more of a gatekeeper’s role—shielding Bob from those he didn’t want to see. Tricia might well be on that list, so she decided it would be best to act as sweetly as possible when dealing with Betsy.

“Good morning, Betsy. Lovely day, isn’t it?”

Betsy’s mouth drooped, her eyes narrowing. “How can I help you, Ms. Miles?”

She was as cold as a day in January.

“I’d like to talk to Bob.”

Betsy lifted the receiver. “I’ll see if he’s in.”

Of course he was in. Tricia could see him behind the glass divide, hunched over his desk, intently staring at the papers scattered across it. The phone buzzed, and Bob picked it up.

“Ms. Tricia Miles is here to see you, Mr. Kelly.”

Tricia watched as Bob’s shoulders sagged. He looked up, saw her, and without enthusiasm motioned her to come in. He mouthed something to Betsy, but Tricia didn’t wait for the reception’s permission to move. She walked past Betsy’s desk to Bob’s office door and entered.

“Am I disturbing you, Bob?” she asked, and closed the door behind her.

He gestured to one of his guest chairs. “No.” His tone was more weary than welcoming.

Tricia decided to drop the pretense and get straight down to business. “I just spoke with the investigator from the NTSB.”

Bob nodded. “I talked to him earlier.” He didn’t offer anything else on the subject.

Tricia looked over the sheaf of stapled papers spread across Bob’s desk. Contracts? He’d said he was worried about liability; no doubt he was checking the exact wording. Had he already spoken to the Chamber’s legal counsel?

“I can’t tell you how upset this whole situation has made me. I know you must feel the same.” But for entirely different reasons, she knew. “Did you personally know the pilot, Monty Capshaw?”

Bob’s gaze dipped to the papers on his desk.

“It’s going to come out eventually, anyway,” Tricia said.

Bob sighed. “Monty and I were old school pals. I hadn’t spoken to him in at least five years when we talked about the Founders’ Day celebration.”

“And what did the conversation entail?” Tricia asked.

“We talked about him flying the banner over the village. He wanted to supply it, too, but I nixed that. The Chamber gave the job to one of our members, Stan Berry, the guy with the sign shop in his garage over on Pine Avenue.”

“I met him at one of the Chamber breakfasts,” Tricia said, mentally putting a face to the name.

“He did a real good job on it. Too bad it got torn all to shreds. We could’ve used it at other functions.”

Tricia had to bite her tongue not to chastise Bob for being so cheap. Losing the banner was the least of the losses from that plane crash. She let it go. “Tell me about Monty,” she said, her voice soft.