A Beeline to Murder (16 page)

“I don’t smoke, ma’am. It’s a nasty habit that shortens your life. As for what you want to see from the surveillance, it’s irrelevant, since I can’t show it to you without my boss’s permission. And I have to log in your visit here. He pays me to keep track of who has been on the premises.”

“Well, it’s your boss that concerns me. I want to clear him as a suspect in this murder investigation. I bet he would appreciate your help in doing that.”

“He might. But Mr. Dobbs has never mentioned anything about being a suspect. As far as I know, the police haven’t come calling, so unless one of you has a badge, I’m afraid you’ll have to leave.”

A tense silence ensued as the guard did a stare down with them. Abby steadied herself against the side of the desk, her gaze sweeping the room as she tried to come up with another approach. Finally, she said to the guard, “I guess this is where I open my purse and flash my badge. Except I don’t have one.”

The guard, who stood with his back to Kat, pivoted stiffly and swept his hand toward the door. Kat reached into her purse and took out her badge. She held her shield on its leather holder in the guard’s face. He looked at it closely.

“So this
is
police business,” said the guard.

“Well . . . ,” Kat began.

Abby spoke before Kat could characterize the visit as unofficial. “Why else would we be here?”

The guard relaxed. “Why not show me your badge right off?”

A quick smile flitted across Kat’s lips. “Some guys are intimidated by lady cops. But I can see you aren’t one of them.”

The corners of the guard’s mouth twitched into a smile. “Of course not.”

“Well, it’s clear,” Abby noted when they had finished looking through the images, “that the maid has brought a glass of milk or something on a tray to Mr. Dobbs.”

“Maybe he couldn’t sleep,” Kat said and then pointed to the screen. “But check out that smile when he opens that door. Time stamp says four forty-six a.m.”

“Well, dang it, that nails his alibi. When the chef died, Dobbs was with the maid. Dobbs could have just told me as much.” Abby sighed.

“You might say something to the missus,” Kat said.

The guard piped up. “She’s new. Mrs. Dobbs brought her on staff three weeks ago.”

Kat smiled. “I’ll bet she warms the mister’s milk just the way he likes it.”

The guard cleared his throat and, avoiding eye contact with both of them, loosened his tie.

Abby looked at them with amused bafflement. When the guard again gestured toward the door, she followed Kat out of the guardhouse.

Kat said, “You’d think the missus might worry about that pretty little chicklet in the house, visiting hubby’s room before dawn. If I were married,” she said, emphasizing the word
were
. She paused. “I’d never hire household help that looked better than me in a uniform.” She flashed a flirty smile at the guard.

He cracked a smile, too, but then grew serious. Addressing Abby, he said, “The maid doesn’t leave the room until five forty-five a.m. That suggests they were in there together for about an hour.”

Abby asked, “Is the maid working today?”

The guard shook his head. “Day off.”

“You have my card. Ask her to call me,” Abby said, extending her hand. “Thanks.”

Walking Abby back to the Jeep, Kat asked, “With Dobbs out of the lineup, who else are you looking at?”

“It’s a short list, growing shorter, without prospects. I’ll be checking out the bar’s regulars, like Sweeney and the bartender. I’ve got questions for Dora, since she may have seen something, but you guys didn’t get much from her in the way of information, so I’m not too optimistic. She could have seen something she’s not telling us about.”

Kat scratched her head. “Maybe Chief Bob Allen is right, Philippe is wrong, and it’s a suicide, plain and simple.”

“Well, I don’t agree with that, either,” said Abby. “Etienne verified he was blackmailing the chef. And he started that vicious rumor. And, as you know, in a small town, gossip spreads like wildfire.” Abby sighed heavily. “I’m just going to keep digging. Philippe and I are going through his brother’s apartment later today. Maybe we’ll turn up something there.” Abby unlocked the Jeep. She touched Kat’s arm. “Before I go . . . what can you tell me about Eva Lennahan’s work with prisoners?”

“Not much,” Kat replied. “She’s well respected. I think she heads a nonprofit that videotapes prisoners addressing their families. You know, they talk about their hopes, fears, and dreams, tell stories for their kids, even sing sometimes. The organization gives the tapes to the family. Seems like meaningful work. She has a lot of contacts in and outside of prisons and a huge fan base.”

“And her husband?”

“Jake Lennahan, businessman, spends a lot of time traveling. He financially backs lots of ventures. I think I heard he’s aligning with some backers to fund a resort of some kind. Don’t think he’s too involved with his wife’s political career or her nonprofit work. Keeps a pretty low profile.”

“Well, thanks, Kat. I appreciate your help.”

“My pleasure . . . especially since it got me a date for the Friday night movies.”

Abby had opened the car door but stopped short of climbing in. She stared at Kat in surprise. “The guard? He doesn’t seem your type.”

“You never know.... He has a wicked sense of humor, likes garage sales and weight lifting.”

“You found out all that while waiting for me for what? Five minutes?” Abby said in amazement. She sucked in a deep breath and let it go. “It occurs to me that you got something nice out of my invitation to come here, so how about letting me off the hook for that date with Bernie?”

“Not negotiable.”

“You want me to suffer, don’t you? For something so slight, I can’t even imagine what it is. I thought I was your best friend.”

“You are. But you are my best friend who needs favors . . . often.”

Abby sighed. “When you’re right, you’re right. But I can’t tell you how much I hate the thought of having to suck it up and deal with it. Anyway, Philippe is waiting for me, so I’d better be on my way.”

After a quick wave good-bye, Kat strolled back. Abby watched her return to the guardhouse—chest out, boobs high, and a light swing to her hips, all, no doubt, to titillate the guard.

Glancing in the rearview mirror as she made the turn onto the blacktop, Abby caught a glimpse of Kat and the guard laughing. Abby admired how easily Kat formed relationships with people, especially guys. When a love affair didn’t work out, Kat wasted no time getting right back into the game, looking for someone new. Her well-meaning advice to Abby after Clay had left was to move on. “You’ve got a blind spot where it concerns Clay Calhoun. Wake up, girlfriend. That hound dog is hunting again.”

For the longest time, Abby had tried to shut out thoughts of Clay, but her memories of him, like water from a deep hidden spring, would surface and ripple outward into myriad what-ifs. What if he didn’t like the new job? What if he walked back into the farmhouse like he’d never left? What if he still loved her with the intensity he’d expressed that day in the kitchen, when he’d knelt before her, taking her hands in his? She had believed that day that his profession of love was the beginning of a proposal of marriage—one she would have accepted—but he’d been interrupted by a phone call, and for whatever reason, Clay never got around to finishing what he’d started.

A week later, Clay had hugged and kissed her in front of the farmhouse, as though he would be back in time for dinner. He’d called ten times that day—at least once for every state he passed through. But when the calls stopped after a week, she called him. By then, she was angry at the man whose abrupt departure had left her feeling like a jilted lover. Her first call and all the subsequent ones went to voice mail. It made no sense. But in retrospect, she had learned something—her inner urge to be rooted and to nest was not his need. He suffered from a wanderlust that would ever urge him to seek out new and changing landscapes in the world.

 

 

Tips for Drying Mint

Chapter 12

Each nostril of a dog’s highly sensitive nose can track separate scents, proving useful in helping humans find illegal drugs, locate dead bodies, and even detect cancer.

 

 

A
bby expertly guided the Jeep along the switchbacks, easily negotiating the curves of the two-lane highway from Las Flores to the forested summit of the coastal mountains. She stole a quick look at Philippe, whose face during the past few minutes had turned as white as a parsnip in April.

“You don’t look so good. Do I need to pull over?”

Cars had been whizzing past them in succession during the eight-minute trip from town to the summit. The shoulder on the right had eroded in places from mud slides during the recent rainy season. Pulling off the road wouldn’t be that easy, but Abby didn’t want poor Philippe upchucking his breakfast muffin on his charcoal linen dress pants. She flipped on the turn signal and prepared to turn.

Philippe swallowed hard. He hung on to his seat belt with a white-knuckled grip. “Much farther?”

“Half a mile more.”

Apparently planning for the worst but hoping for the best, Philippe pressed a white monogrammed handkerchief against his mouth and loosened his raspberry silk tie. By the time Abby had turned off the highway and had traveled a mile or so down a two-lane ribbon of asphalt, some color had returned to Philippe’s cheeks.

They searched for signs along the road for the Church of the Pines, built during the last century. Abby couldn’t use the navigation app on her phone, because it had lost its signal. She braked and searched harder for signs for the church. It was a pretty drive through towering redwoods interspersed with fields. The houses were few and far between, but there were signs of a thriving community—bicycles and trikes in a driveway, a plot of tomatoes growing out front, and chickens and ducks roaming about. The mountain had its own way of linking families through its rugged environment. People had to depend on each other when misfortune or bad weather struck.

As she drove, Abby’s thoughts drifted to Philippe’s family. She wondered how the conversation might have gone between Philippe and his dad about where to bury Jean-Louis. All Philippe had told her was that he had talked with his father by phone and they had decided as a family that a quick burial made the most sense, especially since Abby’s private investigation was ongoing and the health of Philippe’s mother was deteriorating. Nevertheless, Abby decided to broach the subject of Sugar.

“Philippe, could you take Sugar when you return home to New York? I mean, the dog is thirty-five pounds of pure love. And since she belonged to Jean-Louis, isn’t there a chance your mom and dad would also welcome her into their lives? She just needs a bit of training, but she’s smart. Really smart.”

Philippe looked at Abby with an incredulous expression. “I am sorry, Abby. I know you think I should take her. But this dog, I cannot take. I am not a dog person. I do not want the responsibility. And my parents are not able to take the dog, either. My father has his hands full, and my mother, she cannot care for herself. A dog would be too much for them.”

Philippe pressed his white monogrammed handkerchief against his mouth.

“No, you are right. It wouldn’t be good for Sugar, either.”

“There!” Philippe pointed to a narrow dirt road that twisted away from the heat-shimmering asphalt several hundred feet ahead. The weather-beaten gate on the split-rail fence had been flung open wide, as if in permanent welcome to visitors. The church building itself appeared in harmony with a landscape that included many dark and deep canyons; the Las Flores River, which dried to a trickle in the summer but swelled in the winter to fill the local reservoir; and towering coast redwoods, pines, and oaks, which swayed year-round in an ancient dance orchestrated by forceful winds sweeping up the western side of the mountains from the Pacific.

The church’s dark exterior suggested to Abby repeated applications of redwood paint and annual coats of stain, a feature characteristic of buildings in the harsh microclimate of the mountains. A single wooden step rose from the thin soil to the black-handled doors of the sanctuary. From the roof overhang above the entrance, a solitary porch light hung inside a squat metal frame. As Abby studied it before stepping inside, she doubted a single bulb would cast much illumination, but any light, however dim, would facilitate finding the door during moonless nights or during the dark, stormy days of winter, when the fog wafted by in sheets so thick that you couldn’t make out the person standing next to you.

“During our brief phone call,” Abby told Philippe, “the priest said to push the button by the literature table.” She walked straight to it and pressed her thumb against it. “I guess it rings in his cottage behind the church, so he’ll know when we’ve arrived.”

While they waited for the priest to show, Philippe strolled up the center aisle, hands outstretched, briefly touching each carved pew. His steps ceased before the altar, a simple wooden table with four straight legs and draped in a cloth of white lace. The weekly bulletin had been placed on the table, next to a vase of wildflowers and a white pillar candle. Philippe bowed his head slightly and made the sign of the cross so quickly that it almost seemed like a circle. Perhaps it was an old habit, learned in childhood but not practiced so much in adulthood. He walked back to the rear wall, where a religious painting caught his attention. Darkened possibly by candle smoke and exposure to the elements, the painting required close examination to make out the figures. Abby stepped aside so Philippe might peer closely at the images.

He murmured, “This is old . . . beautiful. It needs cleaning.” He stood with fingers interlocked behind his back. “To her, the Samaritan woman, He revealed himself.”

“Yes,” Abby, replied, not sure what to say. She, too, looked intently at the painting, trying to discern the images of Jesus and the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well, a Bible story she actually knew. The Samaritan woman was neither Jewish nor chaste, having had five husbands and living with another. Even she was surprised when Jesus asked her, a woman shunned by her own people, for a drink of well water, knowing that it would necessitate Jesus—a Jew—to use her utensil, and that doing so would make him ritually unclean. But he spoke of living water and revealed himself as the Messiah. Philippe was right. Jesus had revealed Himself to her and on many other occasions had demonstrated His inclusiveness of women and men whom society had marginalized.

Philippe heaved a heavy sigh. “God willing, my brother’s soul can rest in peace now.” He stared at the painting, then finally turned and retreated to a pew, where he slid onto the ages-old, worn wooden seat. Hunched over, eyes closed, Philippe fell silent.

Abby strolled quietly and slowly toward him. She marveled at how the clerestory window light bathed the interior and splayed across Philippe’s dark hair, highlighting strands and creating shimmering undertones of color. Shut out of his interior world, she imagined he was thinking about the site they were about to see and perhaps wondering what criteria to use in deciding if it would be the right place for Jean-Louis. Or maybe Philippe was reacquainting himself with interior prayer.

She strolled to where he sat. As she gazed down at his bowed head and perfectly proportioned hands folded in his lap, her heart swelled with the desire to throw her arms around him and to whisper words of comfort. Wasn’t that what he needed? What everyone needed when they felt bereft and alone? But Abby stopped herself—as she always did—with thoughts of how such spontaneity could muddy the boundaries of their relationship. Maybe if she were entirely truthful, it was she who needed the warmth and the words of comfort. She quickly moved past the thought, turning her attention to the church’s sparse design and interior furnishings.

With its lovely simplicity, the small sanctuary could be appreciated not in terms of what it had, but in terms of what it didn’t have. It had no fancy architecture, no stained-glass windows, and no statuary in niches. Rather, the small church offered a cool refuge against the heat of the mountains, a quiet place to sit, and nothing to detract from prayer. The room smelled woodsy, earthy, as if the wooden surfaces had been anointed with oil of cedar, sage, and camphor.

Absorbed in her observations, Abby was surprised to hear Philippe whisper her name. His hand reached for hers. Taking it and responding to his gentle tug as he scooted over, Abby permitted him to pull her gently down into the pew.

Philippe whispered hoarsely, “Who could have imagined such an ending for someone on purpose with his life? He was destined for better things. I can’t make sense of it.”

Abby shook her head. She was aware only of the gentleness of his hand wrapped around hers, the warmth of his fingers.

“I wrestle with what is not possible to know. Did he die quickly”—Philippe’s voice faltered—“or did he know in his final moments that he was leaving?” He fell silent for a beat. “Has his spirit ascended some great distance or to a place unknowable except in death?”

Abby tried to think of something consoling to say. “Some say we can feel those who love us around even after they are gone.”

“I cannot feel him. And I know not about an afterlife, although my faith tells me there is one.” Philippe stared at the altar.

Struggling with her own feelings of sadness, Abby remained quiet. His dark despair might seem unbearable to him now, but she knew it would eventually lift. She would do whatever was needed to help him through this period—be the caring friend, a warm body sitting close, fully present to his pain.

His voice cracked as he spoke again. “But I am thankful for you. . . .
Vous êtes ma lumière
.”

She swallowed and looked away. There were times when she wished she could allow herself to express her feelings at the moment she felt them. Referring to her as his light was such a tender thing to say. It deserved a response. But which? A hug, a kiss, a thank-you . . . ? Abby briefly tightened her fingers against his but said nothing. More moments passed, during which she was acutely aware that not only were their hands touching, but so, too, were their thighs.

Abby felt the tension dissipate as the priest walked into the back of the church. She quickly pulled her hand from Philippe’s to swivel in the pew. Philippe lifted his head in alertness as he, too, turned to look at the man of the cloth. The priest looked like an elf. He was short, standing maybe five feet, plus an inch or two. He had a head of thick reddish-brown hair and a short cropped beard. He wore slacks and a dark shirt with a cleric’s collar.

“I see you found the way.” The priest smiled and set aside his walking stick to shake their hands warmly, putting them at ease with a genuine friendliness, which Abby hadn’t quite expected. In truth, she hadn’t known what to expect. But her heart felt lighter, for she thought that perhaps this man of God could help Philippe in his darkest hour.

Abby stared at the walking stick, remembering the story her grandfather had told her about the Glastonbury hawthorn tree that supposedly grew from the walking stick that had belonged to Joseph of Arimathea. After Joseph had journeyed to Glastonbury, in England, he’d plunged the walking stick into the ground, where it rooted. He bequeathed the tree to Glastonbury, but the Puritans came along and destroyed it. But leave it to the monks to have taken cuttings and therefore to have ensured the tree’s survival. After hearing that tale as a six-year-old, Abby had stuck every kind of stick into the ground, hoping for roots, but to no avail.

They followed the priest out of the sanctuary and along a stone path up the steep hill in back of his house behind the church. Alongside the path, chaparral, sagebrush, yarrow, and lupine grew in wild abandon. Abby pointed to the top of the hill, where she could see several moss-covered headstones leaning sideways, as if destined to collapse before another century on the mountain had passed.

“If you would follow me,” the priest said, running his finger around his white neck band. His damp face glistened with sweat from the exertion. Beneath bushy brows, his dark eyes shined. “I have a site in mind. Just over here.”

He led them to a sheltered area under the largest live oak that Abby had ever seen. The girth of the trunk seemed in excess of a couple of yards. The lower limbs curled outward, like ancient gnarled arms of a wise old woman welcoming all to take shelter. When Abby heard the nasal
yank-yank
from the top of the oak, she smiled in recognition of the red-breasted nuthatch. For a moment, she considered how it might have pleased Jean-Louis to have a feathered friend who, too, flitted between America and Canada.

When Abby climbed a few more steps up from the oak and saw the view, she instantly forgot the bird. Her smile widened and her breath caught in her throat. She could hardly get out the words, “Hurry, Philippe. The fog is rolling back in. You can see across every mountain ridge . . . all the way out to the Pacific. Oh, my . . . it feels like we are next door to heaven.”

Philippe picked his way up to her, the wind whipping at his trouser legs and shirtsleeves. When he finally caught up to her, he was out of breath. He stood quietly, closed his eyes, and seemed to be fully present and anchored. Perhaps he wanted to listen to the birdsong and the wailing wind. Finally, he opened his eyes to take in the 180-degree view. Abby gazed with him. In the foreground were blue-green ridges, like waves on the sea, which towered on a north-to-south axis. The ridges were punctuated with plunging, green forested valleys. More ridges jutted upward as one’s gaze moved farther out, before finally resting on a slip of white coastline and, beyond, a gray fog bank that merged with the sky. In the coastal waters near the beach, the shimmering blue sea was dotted with the white triangles of sailboats, their crews apparently sharing an optimism that the sun would hold and the afternoon sailing would be smooth.