A Grid For Murder (19 page)

A
FTER WE ATE, ZACH GOT OUT A WHITE LEGAL PAD, READY
to take some notes.

“Let’s start with your list of suspects,” he said.

“Okay. Let’s see,” I said as I consulted my mental list and started ticking names off with my finger. “We’ve got Laura Moon, Sandra Oliver, and Harry Pike to start with, and we can’t forget Greg Lincoln and Hannah Reed, either.”

“Hang on, I’m writing as fast as I can.” After a minute, he finished and looked up at me. “Is that it?”

“So far,” I said.

I was expecting to go on to motives and alibis after that, but Zach surprised me by asking, “Who else has taken an interest in the case?”

“Besides us, and Captain North, you mean?”

“I can put all of us on the suspect list, but I don’t think that would be very productive, do you?”

“Not so much. Let’s see, I guess Rob’s name would have to go there.”

“And Barbara’s, too,” he said as he wrote her down.

“I came to her first, remember?”

“Funny, I thought I saw her approach you today.”

“You did,” I admitted.

“Then it shows interest, especially after you turned her down so thoroughly. Anyone else?”

I tried to think of everyone I’d spoken to recently about Joanne. “Not that I can think of.”

“Then we’ll leave a little room at the bottom, just in case. Now, we need to tackle motives.”

“I’ve got them for just about everyone,” I said.

“You’ve been busy, haven’t you?”

“I have my moments,” I admitted.

Zach’s writing hand paused.

“Is anything wrong?” I asked.

“I was just wondering, is there any chance we have any ice cream left?”

I couldn’t believe it after all he’d eaten. “Are you honestly still hungry? We just ate.”

He frowned slightly. “There’s nothing wrong with a little dessert.”

He had a point. “I suppose I might have a little room myself.”

I started to get up when he said, “You stay here. I’ll get it. After all, that’s the least I can do, and I mean it.”

“You could always do dishes, if you wanted to be really helpful.”

He nodded. “You’re right. I haven’t done them in a while. Let’s skip the ice cream and I’ll get right on the dishes.” We’d discussed installing a dishwasher in the cottage since we’d moved in, but it wouldn’t be an easy, or inexpensive, fix, so for the time being, we were hand-washing our things.

“I don’t mind doing them later,” I said.

“Nope, I’ve made up my mind. You write while I wash. Let’s go work on this in the kitchen.”

I wasn’t about to try to discourage him anymore. “Okay, that works fine for me.”

“You aren’t putting up more of a fight than that?”

I grinned at him. “Not today.”

As he filled the right bowl of the sink with warm, sudsy water, I took his legal pad and started to write.

“Hey,” he protested, “I don’t mind doing these, but you wouldn’t mind doing that out loud, would you?”

“Sorry, I got carried away,” I said.

“I get it. I know how you are. What have you got so far?”

I started reading from the list. “Harry’s got a land deal with Joanne that’s worth a great deal of money; Joanne supposedly stole something of value from Sandra—”

He cut me off. “Any idea what that’s all about? She wouldn’t tell us a thing when we interviewed her.”

“No. She denied it to me as well. Rob and I were going to try to talk to her this evening about it again, but she and Nathan were already gone when we got there.”

“You two are a regular team on this, aren’t you?”

“What’s the matter—jealous?” I asked.

“Maybe a little,” he said as he moved a glass to the other sink to rinse it. “You do seem to be spending a lot of time together lately.”

“We’re working on the case,” I said. “You’re kidding, right?”

“Mostly I am,” he conceded. “Is there anything wrong with wanting to keep my wife?”

“Not in my book,” I said as I gave him a kiss. “I have no desire to be with anyone else.”

“Me, either,” he said. After washing a bowl, Zach said, “I’d love to know what Joanne took from Sandra.”

“It could be important. We need to ask her again.”

Zach considered that, and then said, “Maybe you should ask Laura. After all, she’s the one who told us about it in the first place.”

“That’s another thing,” I said. “Laura told me at Joanne’s place today that Sandra isn’t speaking to her anymore.”

He paused with a plate in his hand. “That’s odd. I thought those two were inseparable.”

“Apparently so did Laura.”

“Okay, let’s move on. How about Laura herself?”

“She’s due to inherit everything Joanne owned, but according to her, that won’t be much of anything after the bills are all paid, even though I find that hard to believe, given what I’ve seen so far. Hang on a second, she knows about the land deal with Harry Pike. That changes everything.”

“We need to dig a little deeper into what she knows, and when she learned it,” Zach said. “The timing of it all could mean everything. If she knew about the money and property beforehand, it could change everything.”

“I’ll try, but money is always hard to discuss.”

“You can do it, Savannah. I have faith in you. Besides, you already have an in, there.”

“You’re talking about the money we found, aren’t you?”

“I am. That eleven grand just might be the key to this whole thing,” Zach said. “Where do you suppose it came from?”

“I’ve been trying to figure that out since we found it. Could she have been saving it over the years?”

My husband frowned. “A shoe box isn’t much of a vault, is it?”

“I don’t know. It’s better than putting it under her mattress.”

Zach rinsed another bowl and put it in the drying rack. “I still can’t believe the police missed it. North couldn’t understand it, either.”

“None of them are as competent as the great Zach Stone,” I said with a grin. “But then who is?”

“True, it’s a high bar I set when I was an officer of the
law,” he said, laughing. “What other reasons do you have that might lead to murder?”

“Greg had a lover’s quarrel with Joanne before she died, and Hannah believes that Joanne ran her son out of town forever. Those could both be pretty strong motives.”

“I hope if anything happens to me they don’t find so many folks with a motive for murder,” he said.

“Don’t worry, I’m certain they’ll focus their investigation all on me,” I said with a smile.

“You would be the most likely suspect,” he said.

“Hey!”

“Statistically speaking,” he added with a chuckle.

“Now that we have our list, what do we do next?”

“Aren’t we forgetting something?” he asked as he finished rinsing the pot I’d made the soup in.

“No, I think you got them all,” I said as I looked around the kitchen.

“Suspects,” he said. “Do we have motives for Barbara and Rob?”

I decided to go along with him. “Well, Rob said Joanne had been friends with his wife. Maybe there’s an old grudge there.”

“It’s possible. How about Barbara?”

“I don’t have anything yet, but we’re meeting in the morning to discuss the case, so I’ll see what I can come up with then.”

As Zach let the water drain out of the sink, I said, “You know what? I’m in the mood for ice cream after all.”

“Sorry, but the kitchen is now officially closed.”

“You’re kidding, right?” I asked as I reached into the cabinet for a clean coffee mug. I liked to use them instead of bowls, trying to fool myself into believing that if I used
a smaller vessel, I’d have a reduced portion as well. It rarely worked, though. I usually ended up just filling the cup more than once.

“I’m not washing that,” he said.

“Relax, I’ll rinse it when I’m through and take care of it tomorrow. Care to join me?”

“When you put it that way, how can I refuse?”

Z
ACH WAS GONE BY THE TIME I GOT UP THE NEXT MORNING
, something that wasn’t out of the ordinary most days, but especially when he was wrapped up in a case. My husband had an obsessive quality to his personality, and it had bothered me when we’d first started dating, but I knew better than to ever try to change it. That was one of the reasons I loved him now. He could put an intense focus on whatever he cared about, and fortunately, one of the things he cared about most in the whole world was me.

I made myself a quick breakfast, and then got into town a full two minutes before I was due to meet with Barbara. I had no idea why she was so eager to help me with my investigation so actively all of a sudden, but I was going to do my best to find out.

I had just walked into Brewster’s Brews when Barbara herself greeted me at the door. “Savannah, I’m so glad you could make it,” she said as she showed me to a table by the window. It also happened to be somewhat isolated from her other customers. I wasn’t sure whether she was doing it for my sake, or hers.

“Thanks,” I said, startled as she took my coat and laid it on one of the free chairs at our table. When I sat down, I found a coffee waiting for me—just the way I liked it—and a fresh cranberry scone. “I don’t know what to say.”

“Think nothing of it. I want to apologize for my rudeness before. There was no reason for me to act the way I did.”

“It’s not necessary. You had every right to make the request that you did. I just can’t lie to my husband.”

“That’s an admirable trait,” she said. “I shouldn’t have tried to punish you for it.”

What was going on here? “Barbara, is everything okay?”

“Everything’s absolutely perfect,” she said. “Why do you ask?”

“You have to admit that your change of heart was pretty sudden,” I said, and then took a sip of her delicious coffee.

“Are you questioning my motives?” Barbara asked softly.

“Absolutely,” I said, making my voice match hers.

I wasn’t sure how it was going to end up for a few seconds, but suddenly she smiled. “I’ve underestimated you, and that’s something that I rarely do. You’re stronger than you seem to be at first glance, aren’t you?”

“I don’t know about that. I just like to know the motives behind the actions that people take.”

Barbara thought about it for a few seconds, and then said, “I guess I just hate the fact that something’s been going on in my town, and I didn’t have a clue it was happening.”

“I didn’t realize Parson’s Valley belonged to you,” I said with a smile.

She laughed at that. “It doesn’t—I know that—but I still feel overprotective toward it.”

“And that’s it?” I asked.

She shrugged. “Okay, I’m nosy; I admit it. You intrigued me with your request for information, so I started doing some digging on my own despite our misunderstanding. I found something out in the process.”

“What’s that?” I asked, honestly curious about her reply.

“It’s harder to sit on information someone else could use than I ever would have imagined. Will you indulge me?”

“I’d love to hear what you’ve uncovered,” I answered.

The gleam in her eyes was bright as she lowered her voice and said, “I’ve got some information that’s going to interest you. I guarantee it.”

“I’m listening,” I said as I took a bite of scone. It was delicious, and I had to wonder if Emma Parson had made it in her bakery. I was glad the baker’s name hadn’t come up in my investigation so far. It was good to have someone I liked that I didn’t consider a suspect in a murder case. She was the other person I knew I could rely on, but thankfully, I hadn’t had to ask her for help yet. How nice it would be if I didn’t have to involve both of the folks who helped make Parson’s Valley home to me. I’d already dragged Rob straight into the middle of my mess, but so far, Emma was safe.

Barbara said, “To begin with, I understand you’ve been
speaking with Greg Lincoln. That’s very astute of you, Savannah. Not many folks in town knew what was going on between him and Joanne.” It was clear by her praise that she herself had known all along.

I didn’t want to tell her that I’d gotten Greg’s name from Rob. It wasn’t that I wanted the credit. I was more concerned with keeping his role in my investigation as neutral as I could. “Do you have anything on Greg?”

“I know for a fact that he was absent from the barbershop for at least ninety-five minutes on the day Joanne was murdered. That would give him plenty of time to drive to Asheville, kill her, and make it back here.”

That didn’t jibe with what I already knew. “He told me that he takes an hour for lunch every day, no more and no less.”

Barbara nodded. “That’s normally true, but I’ve been asking around, and Kyle Peeler complained that Greg was closed when he went by for a trim at ten thirty, and I saw him myself fiddling with his keys at five minutes after twelve.”

“That’s interesting,” I said. If it was true, she was right. That kind of timeline would give Greg plenty of time to kill Joanne and get back to Parson’s Valley to open up for the afternoon.

“Is there anything else?” I asked after taking another sip of coffee.

“Oh, we’re just getting started,” she said. There was a tone of joy in her voice that was unmistakable. Barbara was having the time of her life. No wonder she was being so nice to me. I was sure she was just about to the bursting point with all of her information, and she had no one to tell it to who could truly appreciate it but me.