2 Multiple Exposures (10 page)

“Well what does she look like?” Louisa wanted to know.

“A doll,” Allie Kate piped up. Look who was more animated now that the conversation wasn’t centered on her finances. Okay, I was being petty. “She’s incredibly beautiful and moves with grace, as if she took classes at some point on how to move. She—oh what’s that word?”

I ground my teeth and gave a slow blink. “The word is sashay. She sashays when she walks.”

“Yes! That’s it, ladies. With her hands raised like this.” Allie Kate demonstrated, and the women chuckled.

“You know, ladies, you really shouldn’t talk about people who are absent this way.” Wow, was I the hypocrite.

“Oh, Makayla.” Allie Kate tapped my arm. “We’re just being silly. No harm in it, and we didn’t say anything bad about her. You know who would love to make friends with—I just realized I don’t know her name. Do you know it, Makayla?”

I said nothing. Whether a hypocrite or a woman in denial that she had developed deeper feelings than she had supposed, for a man who obviously had not, I had reached my limit.

My best course of action was to stay quiet, lest I ring Allie Kate’s neck with the cape she wore. Such violence, Makayla, you might be thinking, and to that I say I am not nor will I probably ever be a sweet southern belle. I loved these women, all of them that I had become close to, but I would never be as gentle of spirit as they were with a hint of spite mixed in. So I can admit to
thinking
violent thoughts.

Then again, it was one of these people in Briney Creek who had committed murder not once but twice. So maybe I was of a higher moral code. Take that!

Allie Kate snapping her fingers before my face brought me out of my ridiculous musings, and I attended to the conversation.

“I said what do you think of her, Makayla. The ex, I mean. Pattie has just told us her name is Penelope Norwood while you were wool-gathering.”

“Norwood?” I repeated and looked at Pattie. She confirmed. I sat straighter. “I think she’s here to get her husband back.”

“Oh, no,” went up several cries.

I shrugged. “Listen, ladies, it’s fine. I came to Briney Creek to start a new life, focused primarily on my photography. I’m doing that. Business is very good, and I am mature enough to believe what isn’t good for me doesn’t need to be in my life. That’s fine too.”

Edna made a sound of disappointment. “Don’t you want to go tell her this town isn’t big enough for the both of you? I was going to be one of your posse.”

“Edna, sweetheart, when did this become the Old West?”

She smirked at me. “I’m used to fighting and taking no prisoners. I’ve had practice for years.”

“And losing,” Louisa said, “to Talia. So stay out of Makayla’s love life, Edna, and get over there and see if Connie can fix that head.”

Everyone chuckled, including me, and thank the heavens, the conversation moved on to less painful subjects.

Chapter Ten

Spencer stood before me with his broad shoulders and his smoky gray eyes looking into mine and said to me, “I need you with me.” The sincerity and earnestness stole my breath, and I know you’re thinking, yes! Finally, he comes to his senses and figures out that the lovely, if a tad too curvy, Makayla is the one for him and not that shallow perfect beauty he married. You would of course be wrong, but it was a good thought, and you’re not to be blamed for jumping to conclusions.

What Spencer
actually
said was, “I need you…with me on this, Makayla, so we can get this woman talking. I’m feeling a lot of pressure from above, and I need to wrap the case up before the news goes national.”

“Good luck, my friend,” I snarked, and I saw a muscle tick in his jaw.

“Makayla—”

“I’ve said I will help you, Spencer. Who are we talking to today?” I spoke the words as casually as I could and put distance between us. I wasn’t kidding about the smoky gray eyes. They were powerful.

He grabbed my arm before I could get too far. “This is important, but so is us talking.”

“There’s no time. Aren’t we late for the appointment?”

He grumbled and checked his watch. “We have five minutes before we have to leave.”

I smiled. “Generous.” He started to say my name again, but I cut him off. “I’m not ready to talk about it, Spencer. I want to, sort of, but not yet. Can you accept that for now? Please?”

He sighed, eyeing me. His shoulders were tight, and ordinarily I would make him take a moment so I could rub them and work out some of the knots. Not this time. I thought it better if we kept the touching to the bare minimum, and he had already used up his grabbing my arm. He just didn’t know it.

“Fine,” he said. “But don’t wait too long.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

We left my apartment with me riding in his SUV. I had told him I would meet him there, but he refused. My second offer had been to follow him. Again rejected. Spencer Norwood was a very stubborn man. I gave in for now.

“We’re talking to Grace Jacobs,” Spencer informed me. “She was one of your clients.”

“Is that a question?”

“No. Her photos were on the computer, several sets with different dates.”

I cringed. “This might sound weird, but how do you know whose is whose?”

His color rose, and I hid my amusement. “He added their names to the file and the dates. Convenient for us.”

“Have you considered someone else might have set the doctor up? That he might be innocent?”

“Do you have evidence to the contrary?”

“No.”

“Then we proceed this way for now. Besides, we already spoke with Lissa Russell. She indicated he was attached to the pen and refused to see a patient without it.”

“I spoke with Allie Kate Brinlee. She said she had been a patient of his years ago, but she wasn’t on the list you gave me.”

He nodded and turned onto the road where the main branch of the library stood. Grace worked as a librarian. While the place was quiet, and we could go to a private room to have our discussion, having the interview there still felt inappropriate.

“The dates go back only six months,” Spencer explained. “We couldn’t find anything older. So we were able to set aside any patients that had stopped seeing him before that.”

“Set aside? Don’t you mean eliminate?”

“A friend finds out her new doctor is taking pictures of her without her permission. She shares the information with another friend who had stopped seeing him. That other friend might assume she was also a victim. She or her significant other could have decided to take matters into their own hands without proof. It happens. We focus on those we have for now, and if it turns up nothing, we work backward.”

I almost moaned at the tedium but pulled myself together. This was an urgent and important situation. I needed all my wits about me to be of use to the investigation. “So I’ll do the talking?”

“Only if she gets jammed up and embarrassed.” He pulled to a stop at the curb in front of the library and threw the gear shift into park.

Before he could get out of the car, I reached to touch his arm and changed my mind. He saw and paused. I might have seen something in his gaze, but couldn’t be sure. I turned away. “Spencer, try not to be too hard on them, okay? Gently.”

That same nerve in his jaw jumped, but he nodded, and we got out of the car to head into the building. The scent of old leather and musk met my nose when I pushed through the revolving door into the Briney Creek main library. A wide expanse of marble flooring encompassed the lobby and continued on toward the Information Desk. To the right and left of that were the entrances to the children’s section and to the reference section. If you took the curving staircase to the right or left of the front door, you reached the second floor, which housed other fiction and young adult. I had visited countless times and enjoyed the quiet solitude of the place. Of course, unless you hid behind one of the tall bookshelves, you weren’t likely to remain alone long. Spencer and I saw evidence of this when a couple of the older ladies from Edna’s group spotted us and burst into smiles, ready to head on over. My grumpy companion’s expression gave them pause, and the moment passed when Gloria appeared to greet us.

“Sheriff and Makayla, thank you for meeting me here and not making me come down to the station. I’m embarrassed enough as it is.” Gloria was a slender woman of about five foot four with curious green eyes that had struck me with their beauty the first time I’d seen them on film. Now the same gaze was filled with trepidation.

She looked past us to the entrance as she spoke, and I turned to see what she was looking at. Mr. Jacobs, a man built bigger than Spencer, if you can believe it, was weaving through lunchtime traffic to reach the library. A sense of dread came over me. I had only met Mr. Jacobs a handful of times when he sat for the portraits with his wife and their son, but he had seemed to me to be quite intimidating. I imagined, as an attorney, he had cowed many a witness on the stand without a word.

When Paul Jacobs barrowed through the door and stalked toward us, I began to wonder what were they putting in the water down here in North Carolina that the husbands were so enormous. I had to crane my neck to look up at him as he drew alongside us.

“What do you think you’re pulling, sheriff, talking to my wife without me present?” Paul growled.

To his credit, Spencer was not fazed. “My job.”

Paul raised a finger to stab in Spencer’s direction, but his wife grabbed it. “I’m sorry, sheriff, but he is my attorney, and I wanted to have him present.”

“You’re not being charged with anything.”

“She has every right—”

“I know the dang rights,” Spencer snapped. “I’m conducting an investigation into murder. Is your attitude your way of telling me you won’t cooperate?”

“We have nothing to hide,” the man shot back.

“Good, then you won’t have a problem if Makayla talks to your wife and I talk to you—in private.”

“What?” Paul hadn’t expected this request, but his confusion was replaced quickly by his unmanageable anger. “I already told you the police are not questioning my wife without me there. The next thing you know she’s accused of something she didn’t do. I know how your kind works, and it’s not happening here today!”

The more Paul spoke, the higher his voice rose. He was becoming so irrational I began to wonder where he’d gotten his license to practice law. Surely, this man should have more sense. Other visitors to the library had begun to stop and stare openly. Whispers echoed across the high ceilings, and I didn’t doubt they were all focused on our little group.

I glanced at Gloria, hoping she would put a stop to the tirade, but she stood stiff and frightened, hands balled in her skirt and face pale. She was a far cry from Lissa who had calmly told Hardy Joe to shut up.

Spencer spoke with eerie calm, so much so it startled Paul into silence. “First of all, Makayla is not a police officer, so your wife is free to share whatever she wants to with her.” The emphasis on the word
wife
and
free
wasn’t lost on any of us, including Paul. “Now, we can all talk here in the lobby together, or we can go somewhere in private.”

I thought Spencer should have added a third option, that of going down to the station. I had heard him use the threat before, but instinct probably told him that threat would only set Paul off again.

Paul acquiesced. “I’ll talk to you for a few minutes, but for now, only Makayla talks to Gloria.”

I felt special and known. Why did everyone in town know my name and speak it as if we were either old friends or old acquaintances? I suppose I should be flattered, and we did get what we wanted.

So, a bit shaky and unfocused, Gloria led us into a narrow hall I had never noticed before, along a row of doors. She opened one and gestured for Paul and Spencer to go in. The room was little more than a closet with a Formica-topped desk and metal chair. Wow, was this an interrogation room or just a low budget at work, I wondered.

Gloria and I took the next room, a scootch nicer because she had added her personal touch, the main focus being pictures of her little boy and a smattering of his artwork. One of the family photos we had done sat on the desk, and she moved it aside and clutched her hands together.

“Are you okay, Gloria?” I asked when she cut her eyes toward the wall separating us from the men. “I’ve never seen Paul that angry.”

“He has a reason to be. When we heard about the pictures and that I…my…” She put a hand to her mouth, and I worried she would be sick. After a few breaths, she calmed, but tears filled her eyes. “I don’t believe this is happening.”

I leaned across the desk and took her hands. I squeezed, and she hung onto me like a lifeline. “I can’t imagine how terrible you must feel, but I bet you want justice too.”

She nodded sadly.

“Did you know before the sheriff called you?”

“No, I had no idea. Makayla, I’m so embarrassed.”

“You have nothing to be embarrassed about, sweetheart.” I dug in my purse and found tissue for her. “This wasn’t your fault. You did nothing wrong. What we are going to do is fight. We’re going to find out what happened and who killed the doctor, and we’re going to lay this nasty business to rest. Then you’re going to enjoy your family and put it behind you. So, can you help me get that done?”

She sniffed and squared her shoulders a little more, but her bottom lip still wobbled. “I’ll do my best.”

“That’s all I ask.”

Gloria stood up and paced the room. She rubbed her temples, eyes shut, and then opened them to face me. “My husband has been getting lots of calls, women who want to sue Dr. Bloomberg’s estate.”

I winced, imagining the magnitude of such a suit. “Did you ever notice anything unusual in Dr. Bloomberg, the way he treated you or looked at you?”

“No, I never noticed anything. He was always professional and friendly.”

“Friendly?”

“Professional,” she reiterated.

“Did your husband ever come to your appointments with you?”

“Once or twice. I know what you’re thinking, Makayla. Paul could never hurt anyone.”

Why did that sound like Hardy Joe? Both of them looked like they could pop my head like a grape, and I didn’t relish the thought. I scoured my mind for more questions, something that would be a clue to what direction we should go in. “Do you think—”

“We’re done here,” came a shout that echoed through the wall. Both Gloria and I rushed for the door. I made it there first and wrenched it open. The door where Spencer and Paul were banged the wall. Paul radiated rage, and Spencer was just rising to his feet with infuriating calm.

His gaze slid to Gloria and back to Paul. “Does your wife know about your past and why you came to Briney Creek?”

Crack!

Spencer crashed into the chair he had just vacated, knocking it over. Gloria screamed and grabbed her husband’s arm. So heavy and muscular when he had balled his fist, there was no way she could stop him if he tried to hit Spencer again. Too late, though. He already had, and that was assaulting an officer. The sheriff didn’t appear to be in a forgiving mood, but then again, Paul didn’t look sorry.

“Paul Jacobs, you’re under arrest.”