50% Off Murder (Good Buy Girls) (25 page)

“I’m fine,” she said. “What happened? Did you think of another pun that you just had to use?”

He grinned, but when he saw her scowl, he quickly forced it back into a somber expression.

“Actually, I just came to offer you a ride,” he said. “I figured walking all sticky like that had to be gross, so I thought it would be nice of me to offer you a lift.”

“It would be nice,” Maggie said. “Making it completely out of character for you.”

“Aw, come on,” he said. “I’m not that bad.”

She refrained from comment. He pushed open the passenger door and it swung wide to the curb. The thought of arriving that much sooner to her shower was more temptation than Maggie could resist. She climbed into the car and shut the door.

“Excellent,” he said. He pulled away from the curb. “Also, I wanted to ask you about the papers you took from Hugh Simpson’s office.”

Maggie’s hearing went fuzzy. She could not have heard that. No, how could he possibly know about that, unless…Max! Damn it. He wasn’t supposed to say anything until she’d made a copy of the papers.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said.

Sam sighed. “Really? You really want to play it that way?”

“What way?” Maggie said. Back in the good old days, her mother had taught her a very valuable life lesson: When all else fails, play dumb.

When times were tough, Maggie’s mother would occasionally float a check at the grocery store, just to keep the family fed, and the bank would invariably call to chastise her. Maggie’s mother always played stupid with a bucketful of charm, and Mr. Costas, the bank manager, always forgave her.

The money was always repaid to the bank as soon as Maggie’s mother got paid for her work as a secretary at the car dealership in Dumontville, and she kept food on the table. She wasn’t proud of what she had to do, but she had drilled it into Maggie that sometimes playing dumb could help you get out of a tough situation.

“I’m not buying it, Maggie,” Sam said as he pulled up to her house. “You and I both know that you were not at the Frosty Freeze getting ice cream—well, at least not to eat.”

Maggie scowled.

“What exactly did Max say to you?” she asked.

“That he found incriminating e-mails on Hugh’s computer and that he thought I should read them. Oh, and that you had them in your purse.”

“I really need to talk to him about knowing when to keep his yap shut,” Maggie said. She pushed open her door.

“Oh, don’t be too hard on him,” Sam said. He reached over the backseat and handed Maggie her hat, which she had left in the Frosty Freeze. “He was a little freaked out, given that I went into Hugh’s office to talk to him about his account of your ice cream—uh—incident and found your hat.”

“Hmm.” Maggie took the hat and strode up the walkway to her house.

“Um, Maggie, the papers?” Sam said.

She turned to look at him. She didn’t think he’d wrestle her purse out of her arms to get them, but then again, she wasn’t so sure.

“Would you like some strawberry rhubarb pie?” she asked. “I made it fresh this morning.”

Sam narrowed his eyes at her. “There you go, being nice to me again. Summer’s ice cream assault must have given you a brain freeze.”

“Personal differences aside, I know we’re on the same team,” Maggie said. “Come on in. I’ll clean up and give you the papers.”

“And pie?” he clarified.

“Yes, pie, too,” she said.

She led the way into the house with Sam behind her. The house was quiet, so she assumed that Sandy and Josh had gone to the park. Josh did love to feed the ducks.

Maggie led the way into the kitchen. She handed Sam a plate and a fork and lifted the cover off the pie plate.

“Help yourself,” she said.

“Where are you going?” he asked.

“I have to clean up before I go mental,” she said. “I’ll be right back.”

He didn’t say anything about her still having her purse under her arm, and Maggie didn’t feel the need to point it out. Confident that she had distracted him with the pie, she hurried down the hall into the small office.

The printer for the computer was also a scanner and copy machine. She wasted no time in turning it on and, while it warmed up, she pulled the sheaf of papers from her purse.

She had just put the third page in the machine when Sam appeared in the door.

“Clearly, you think I am a moron,” he said.

Maggie noted he was still working on his dish of pie. Best to take the offensive.

“Do you always wander around people’s houses?” she asked.

“Only when they go to clean up, and I don’t hear water running but I do hear the sound of a copy machine,” he said. He put his fork on the plate and held out his free hand. “Game over.”

Maggie scowled. She handed him the stack of papers.

“The one in the machine and the copies, too,” he said.

She lifted the lid with a huff of disgust and handed him all of the papers.

“Thank you,” he said.

“What are you going to do with them?” she asked.

“Read them,” he said.

He turned and left the office, heading back to the kitchen. Maggie had assumed he’d leave now that he had what he wanted, but instead he passed through the kitchen to the sun porch and took a seat on the wrought-iron furniture.

“What are you doing?” she asked. She knew her tone was unfriendly, but she couldn’t help but feel that Sam Collins was getting entirely too comfortable in her house.

“I’m going to read and finish my pie,” he said. “Go ahead and clean up. We can talk more when you’re done.”

Maggie went to run her fingers though her hair and realized that she couldn’t. The sundae toppings had hardened. For the first time since the incident, she wondered how bad she looked.

She looked at him suspiciously. He seemed to read her mind.

“I promise I won’t move from my seat.”

“I don’t trust you,” she said.

“On my badge,” he said. “I swear.”

That gave Maggie pause. For however much she knew him to be a big, fat liar, she also knew that he had been an excellent detective in Richmond. Maggie knew he valued his job above all else.

“Okay, then,” she said. She turned and left the porch, hurrying to her bedroom, where she shut and locked the door. Her room was done in shades of cobalt blue and white, and it immediately soothed her. She grabbed fresh clothes out of her dresser and headed to the master bathroom.

One glance at her reflection in the full-length mirror and she had to stifle a scream.

Her mascara was smeared, giving her a sunken-eyed look that she was pretty sure would scare off a zombie. Her auburn hair was caked with hot fudge sauce and melted whipped cream. A streak of strawberry ice cream had hardened on one side of her face and a maraschino cherry was stuck in her hair just above her ear.

She looked like she’d had a brawl with the Good Humor ice cream man and had been beaten severely. She sighed and turned the tap in the shower to scalding. She knew she could wash away the remnants of the sundae, but she feared her dignity was forever lost.

Sam was sitting in the same spot on the sun porch, but now he had company. Mr. Tumnus had curled up in his lap, and Sam was gently rubbing his head while the cat purred as loudly as a diesel engine.

“Making friends, I see,” Maggie said as she took the seat across from him. She continued to towel dry her hair, hoping that after two washings she’d gotten all of the sticky out.

Sam looked up at her and tipped his head to the side.

“What shampoo is that?” he asked.

“Some generic brand,” she said with a shrug.

“It smells like lime and coconut,” he said. “It’s nice.”

Maggie felt her face grow warm, and she rubbed her hair with renewed vigor.

“So, what do you make of the e-mails?” she asked.

“He certainly sounds like he had the potential to commit
murder,” Sam said. Then he shook his head. “Who would have thought it of Hugh Simpson?”

“Or of any of them,” Maggie added.

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“Well, you know, all of the people who took loans from John Templeton have good reason to want him dead,” she said.

Sam’s blue gaze sharpened like a laser pointer, and Maggie knew she had just said too much.
Damn it!

“Maggie, what exactly have you been up to?” he asked.

“Nothing,” she said. “Just talking to people.”

“Why?” he asked.

“Oh, a smart detective like you already knows, I’m sure,” Maggie said. “I’m just trying to gather the facts.”

“So, I figured,” he said. “But what concerns me is whether you’ve compromised my investigation or not.”

“Oh, be serious. How could my talking to a few townspeople affect your investigation?” she said.

“A few townspeople?” he asked. He sat forward, much to the ire of Mr. Tumnus, who hopped off his lap while casting a dirty look at Maggie as if it were her fault, which she supposed it sort of was. “Maggie, exactly whom have you spoken to about this?”

“No one,” she said. “Not really.”

“I want to know exactly who you talked to and what was said,” he commanded. He had his cop face on, and Maggie knew there would be no playing dumb to get out of this.

“All right, fine,” she said. She started from Ginger’s list of local businesses that had taken money from Templeton,
and then she gave the short version about how they had all picked one of Templeton’s clients to question.

“Of course, the e-mail pretty much clinches that Hugh is the one who did it,” she said. “I mean, he straight-up says he’s going to kill Templeton in those.”

Sam was gazing out the window across her backyard while he contemplated all that she had told him. “Not necessarily,” he said. “The thrust of the knife indicates it was overhand, which is more common in female assailants.”

Maggie gasped. “So, you think it was a woman.”

Sam’s eyes snapped from the window to her. “I didn’t say that. In fact, forget I said anything at all.”

“Do you suppose it was Eva?” she asked, completely disregarding what he’d just said.

“I mean, she was so angry that he had dumped her,” she said. “And she definitely thinks he dumped her for Claire, which would give her a reason to lure him to the library and kill him there, making it look like it had been Claire.”

“Templeton was a womanizer,” Sam said. “He didn’t have a thing with just Eva, he was also involved with Sum—”

Abruptly he cut himself off, but Maggie latched on to the beginning of the name with a gasp.

“You were going to say
Summer
, weren’t you?” she asked. “He had a thing with Summer, too. That means she could be the killer.”

“Now, Maggie,” he said, holding up his hands as if to slow her down. “I didn’t say that. I said
some
as in
somebody else
.”

Maggie shot him a look of disgust. “Oh, please, just admit it. He was seeing Summer, too, wasn’t he?”

“He was seeing somebody else, but I am not at liberty to say who, and I shouldn’t have said as much as I did,” he said.

Maggie wanted to growl in frustration. But one look at the stubborn set of Sam’s chin, and she knew he wasn’t going to give her any more information.
Darn it!

“Well, I know that Eva was seeing him,” she said. “She was very forthcoming about it, which you wouldn’t think she would be if she was the killer.”

Maggie thought that, maybe if she kept talking, she could get Sam to spill more information. She didn’t notice the muscle clenching and unclenching in his cheek as she continued.

“I really thought she’d be more a crime-of-passion type and less premeditated, though, you know?” she asked.

“I understand the crime-of-passion part,” Sam said. The sarcasm in his tone brought Maggie’s attention back to him.

“Now, listen, Maggie,” he said. “The person who killed Templeton is desperate. They tried to frame Claire, and they’re obviously capable of murder. You need to butt out of this, for your own good.”

“Do you really think the murderer would kill again?” Maggie asked.

“At this point, they have nothing to lose,” Sam said. “So, no more asking questions, am I clear? I want you to let it lie.”

“But—”

“No!” Sam roared. He stood up and glared down at her, looking as stormy as yesterday’s thundercloud. “No buts. You are to stay away from this case and not ask any more questions.”

“You don’t have to yell,” she said. “There’s nothing wrong with my hearing.”

“Really?” he asked. “Because you seem incapable of following the most basic instructions. Now I want you to back off.”

“What if I just happen to find out something relevant?” she asked.

He blew out a stream of breath that sounded like a steam engine releasing pressure.

“Woman, you are the single most infuriating human being I have ever had the misfortune to encounter.”

He stuffed the papers into his back pocket and took his plate and his fork into the kitchen and rinsed them in the sink. Maggie followed and, when he was finished, she took them from him and put them in the dishwasher.

When she straightened back up, Sam was watching her with an intensity that left her throat dry.

He reached out his hand and brushed one thick lock of her hair back behind her ear. Then he shook his head in wonder.

“You have been winding me up since I was three years old,” he said. “And just like then, I don’t know if I want to strangle you or kiss you.”