Stuck on Murder (25 page)

Tenley sat down hard on one of the chairs at the table. Her mouth was opening and closing in shock. Brenna took out the enlarged picture and told her about the trunk being Phyllis’s and how Grace had overheard the mayor and Mrs. Ripley having a nasty fight the day of his murder.

“That doesn’t prove that Cynthia killed him,” Tenley said. “Or that Phyllis helped.”

“Not yet it doesn’t,” Brenna said.

“What are you thinking?” Tenley asked.

“That Ed might have been on to something and that’s why he got smacked on the head,” she said. “I’m going to go to the hospital and see if he’s awake. Maybe he remembers something.”

“I’ll come with you,” Tenley offered.

“No, I need you to call Nate and tell him what’s going on,” Brenna said.

Tenley studied her. “Is there a reason you’re not calling Nate?”

“No,” Brenna said.

She knew her voice sounded falsely light, but it couldn’t be helped. After telling Nate she wouldn’t get involved, she did not want to be the one to call him and tell him just how involved she was. It was cowardly, she supposed, but he wouldn’t get mad at Tenley. And once he had time to process the news, she was sure he wouldn’t be mad at her either.

Tenley didn’t believe her—Brenna could tell by the way she was frowning at her—but no matter. Brenna had bigger things on her to-do list, like catch a killer.

 

 

The elderly woman at the volunteer desk in the hospital lobby told Brenna to follow the yellow line through the swinging doors, to the elevators, up to Floor 3, and resume following the yellow line to Room 317, where she would find Ed.

Brenna managed it without getting lost, for which she was quite proud of herself. The hospital was cold and smelled of antiseptic and other more noxious things, like certain bodily fluids, that she didn’t want to think about. She rounded the nurses’ station and stopped short. Standing in front of Ed’s room, arguing with a uniformed security guard, was Dom Cappicola.

Brenna watched the exchange. It did not appear to be going in Dom’s favor. Finally, he thrust a handful of balloons at the guard and stalked away, heading straight for Brenna.

He looked up and their gazes locked. She was struck again by the powerful aura he seemed to wear like an overcoat. She was surprised the security guard had had the wherewithal to refuse him entry. She got the distinct impression that Dom Cappicola generally got what he went after.

“Brenna,” he said. “It’s good to see you.”

“You, too,” she said. She held out her hand, which he looked at in amusement. Before she had a chance to back up, he leaned in and kissed her cheek instead. She got a subtle scent of masculine aftershave that made her senses buzz and she stepped back quickly.

“I take it you came to see Ed,” she said.

“Yeah, I heard about what happened, and I didn’t want him worried that we’d shut the paper down while he was flat on his back,” he said.

“You’ll wait until he’s upright?” she teased.

“Big of me, isn’t it?” he asked with a self-deprecating grin.

Brenna smiled. She couldn’t help it. Dom Cappicola had charm; she had to give him that.

“Unfortunately, the monkey with the plastic badge won’t let me in,” Dom said. He threw a glance toward the officer in front of Ed’s door, and his eyes narrowed in speculation.

Brenna followed his gaze. She mirrored his frown when she spotted Phyllis Portsmyth coming down the opposite hallway to stop in front of Ed’s door.

“I am going to be seriously annoyed if they let the mayor’s wife in when they wouldn’t let me in to see my own employee,” he said.

They watched silently as Phyllis was turned away. She glared at the officer and looked as if she wanted to kick him with the pointy toe of one of her shoes. Instead, she trudged back the way she came.

“Well, I guess political clout isn’t what it used to be,” Dom said. He looked somewhat mollified.

“Maybe, but that wasn’t the mayor’s wife,” Brenna said.

“Sure it was,” he said.

“No,” Brenna said. “I just saw the mayor’s wife, Cynthia, at their house. That is Phyllis Portsmyth, socialite extraordinaire.”

“Well, isn’t that interesting?” Dom asked. He rubbed his chin with the back of his hand.

“How so?” she asked.

“Because that woman, Phyllis, is the woman Ripley had with him when he came down to Bayview to talk business,” he said. “And if she’s not his wife . . .”

He let his sentence dangle and Brenna felt it ripple through her like a shock wave.

“Are you absolutely sure?” she asked.

Dom looked affronted. “Of course I’m sure. She reeks of old money and good breeding, which is why I assumed she was his wife. Not to mention that yellow rock on her hand is the size of a Buick—hard to forget a thing like that.”

Brenna knew the ring he meant as she’d stared at it plenty of times herself. Phyllis wore the yellow Portsmyth diamond everywhere; it was five carats of hard-to-forget, in-your-face conspicuous consumption. This changed everything!

“Dom, you’re brilliant!”

Impulsively, she grabbed his face and kissed him hard. When she would have stepped away, he caught her waist, met her gaze, and kissed her back. The contact was electric, like jamming a fork in an outlet but in a good way. She hadn’t seen that coming.

When he released her, he took in her expression with a grin of satisfaction and a lingering look, which swept her from head to toe. Brenna got the feeling she amused him, but it wasn’t just amusement in his eyes now. There was also desire. Brenna swallowed hard. She was not ready to process this.

“I’ve got to go,” she said. With an awkward wave, she ran down the hall on legs that felt as sturdy as jelly.

Chapter 23

Brenna left the hospital with her heart hammering in her throat, and not just because of Dom, although that didn’t help.

No, this was it. Now she had a motive for the mayor’s murder. Cynthia must have murdered her husband when she found out he was sleeping with her best friend.

It was a twenty-minute drive back to the center of town. Brenna spent it wondering what she should do next. She could go to Chief Barker, but what could she say, that Cynthia was the murderer? And what about the trunk? How did the mayor get in Phyllis’s trunk?

The way Brenna had it figured, Cynthia found out about the affair and murdered her husband in a fit of rage. She then must have blackmailed Phyllis, by threatening to go public with the affair, into helping her dispose of the body in her steamer trunk. Obviously, the two women were in it together, which made sense since they were each other’s alibi, but right now it was Brenna’s word against theirs, unless she could get her hands on the murder weapon. But what was it?

The chief said that Ripley had sustained a head trauma and they’d searched Nate’s house looking for evidence to that effect, but with no success. Cynthia must have hit him with something, and Brenna was pretty sure the police would have searched her house, too. Maybe she had hidden it with Phyllis or . . .

Brenna slammed on the brakes, causing the Jeep to teeter and lurch. Luckily, no one else was on this stretch of road or she would have caused a pile-up for sure. She couldn’t believe it. All this time the murder weapon had been sitting on a shelf at Vintage Papers, and Brenna had never suspected. How could she have been so stupid?

She stomped on the gas. She had to get back to the shop and fast.

She called Chief Barker first, but he was out so she left a message. Then she called Nate. All awkwardness aside, this did concern him as he was still regarded as suspect number one. He didn’t answer his phone either, and she sincerely hoped he hadn’t been dragged in for questioning again or, even worse, arrested.

She parked down the street from the shop and hurried up the walk. She pulled on the front door but it was locked. Odd. She fished out her keys and let herself in.

“Tenley?” she called.

She made a beeline for the birdhouse sitting on the shelf. She’d take it over to Chief Barker and tell him her theory. The worst he could do would be to laugh her out of the office. The best he could do would be to deliver it to the crime lab and check for traces of Mayor Ripley’s blood.

She stopped in front of the shelf. An empty cavity was all that remained of where the birdhouse used to sit. She glanced on the other shelves to see if it had been moved.

“Looking for this?”

Brenna spun around to find Phyllis standing behind her holding the birdhouse.

“An unlikely murder weapon, don’t you think?”

“I’m not sure what you mean,” Brenna said. Her scalp prickled as if it had been pulled taut.

“Sure you do.” Phyllis’s laugh was brittle. “Cynthia bashed her husband’s skull in with this very birdhouse.”

There was a manic light in Phyllis’s eyes that reminded Brenna of a rabid dog, and she felt an overwhelming wave of fear infuse her body with a terrified paralysis. She was afraid to move lest Phyllis attack, and yet every cell in her body seemed to be leaning toward the door, so she slowly put one foot behind her and began to walk in that direction.

“Oh, don’t leave.” Phyllis’s voice was soft, but the warning was unmistakable. “I’ve been waiting for you. I saw you, you know, kissing Dom Cappicola at the hospital. I hope it was worth it.”

“Meaning?” Brenna asked.

“I know he saw me in Bayview as I’m sure he told you,” Phyllis said.

She stepped aside and Brenna saw Tenley and Cynthia sitting tied up at the workroom table behind her. Their wrists and ankles were bound and a wide swath of silver tape covered their mouths. Brenna felt a hard punch of dread sock her in the middle, and she about doubled up. She had been wrong. So wrong.

“Phyllis, what are you doing?” she asked. “Let them go.”

“No, I don’t think so,” Phyllis said.

She put the birdhouse down and fished a shiny silver lighter out of her Coach clutch. She picked up one of the photos of Ripley that Brenna had left on the table. She held the corner delicately between two manicured fingers while she ignited the opposite corner with the lighter.

Brenna felt her mouth go dry as the image of Ripley curled and charred under the hungry flame. The smell of smoke burnt her nose and she watched as Phyllis dropped the photo just before it reached her fingertips, letting the ashen remnants float to the floor.

“I think this shop will make a nice bonfire. Paper burns so well, you know,” Phyllis said.

Brenna turned to run for help, but Phyllis dropped the lighter and grabbed an X-Acto Knife.

“Stop!” she ordered as she stepped back and pressed the blade against Tenley’s throat. “One more step and I’ll slit her throat.”

Brenna froze.

“Sit,” Phyllis said. She gestured to an empty seat opposite Tenley. She rolled the duct tape to Brenna and told her to tape her ankles together. Seeing no alternative, Brenna complied.

Phyllis kept the knife at Tenley’s throat while she used her free hand to tape Brenna’s wrists together. Brenna would have fought her off but she was afraid Tenley would get hurt, a fact she knew Phyllis was counting on. The three of them sat facing one another while Phyllis hurriedly locked the front door again.

Tenley and Cynthia were both wide-eyed with shock. Brenna knew she must appear the same. It wasn’t a good look.

Phyllis returned and pulled the tape off their mouths with a rip. Tenley gasped for breath while Cynthia spat and coughed.

“Phyllis, why are you doing this?” Cynthia pleaded. She looked like a puppy shut out in the rain. “I thought we were friends.”

Phyllis slapped her hard. Cynthia’s head snapped back and a trickle of blood, where Phyllis’s ring had cut her lip, ran down her chin.

“Don’t call me that!” Phyllis said. She stabbed the table top with the X-Acto Knife as if she wished it were Cynthia’s heart. She left the knife in the wood and leaned forward to stare at Cynthia with loathing. “Look at you. Do you really believe I considered you my friend?”

Cynthia cowered and Brenna felt bad for her.

“You, the girl who dragged herself out of the projects in Dorchester, be my friend? My family can trace its roots back to the
Mayflower
. You didn’t deserve to be married to the mayor. That position of prominence should have been mine. You stole it from me.”

“What?” Cynthia looked bewildered. “How?”

“When my husband died, the invitations stopped,” Phyllis said, bitterness twisting her mouth into a sneer. “Suddenly, you were the social queen of Morse Point. You, Cynthia Ripley. Ha! I have the breeding and the class. You are nothing, not even worthy to clean my shoes.”

Cynthia’s face lost all its color. “It was you.”

Phyllis threw back her head and let loose a shrill laugh that was chilling in its lack of humor. “Caught on, have you?”