A Mold For Murder (15 page)

I had a hunch who that might have been. “It wasn’t a police officer, was it?”

“Yes, it was,” she agreed. “But I didn’t know him, and I thought I knew everyone in Harper’s Landing.”

“He could be a new man on the force,” I said, thinking of Brian Ross.

“Perhaps you’re right. Honestly, I didn’t care for her behavior. She acted as though she was a rock star, not a soapmaker. I shouldn’t have said that. I’m sure she was a notable in your profession. I certainly didn’t mean any offense by it.”

“None taken,” I said. “It would have shocked me if you’d known who she was if you weren’t a soapmaker.”

“Do the police have any idea who killed the contessa?” she asked me.

“If they do, they’re not sharing their thoughts with me.”

Jean frowned and hesitated before speaking, so I asked, “What is it? You’re holding something back, aren’t you?”

“Ben, you know how I feel about rumors, but I heard something at the grocery store that you should know about.”

“If you’re talking about that slash-and-burn article, we already saw the paper. We’ll get through it.”

“No, that’s not it at all.” She fiddled with a pendant she was wearing, then finally said, “I overheard two women say that Diana had every reason to do what she did, that the contessa deserved it. There are quite a few nasty rumors floating around town. I just thought you should know.”

“Diana didn’t do it,” I said with conviction. “I believe in her innocence completely.”

Jean patted my hand. “Good for you.”

I excused myself from the bed-and-breakfast and walked back to the soap boutique. As I carried the luggage, three different people stopped and asked me if I was going away on vacation. Small towns were deadly when it came to rumors, and I knew that by nightfall all of Harper’s Landing would be postulating on why I was ducking out on Diana in her time of need. Let their tongues wag. At the moment, I didn’t want to think about what the town’s rumor mill was doing to Diana. It gave me just one more reason to find the killer quickly. If folks around town got it into their heads that she was a murderer, no matter what the later facts showed, it would be hard for her to run a business that depended on her customers’ good will.

I stowed the suitcase and garment bag in my trunk, then tried to figure out what had happened to Sharon. Where could she be? After our earlier conversation, I had a hard time believing that she’d just bug out like that. Then I remembered what she’d said. Sharon had felt guilty about how expensive Jean’s place was, and she’d threatened to move out to the Mountain Lake Motel on her own.

At least it was worth a shot, since I had nowhere else to look for her.

 

 

THε
daytime desk clerk didn’t even need a bribe to tell me Sharon was there. He even gave me her room number without demanding a payoff. I decided he needed lessons in graft and extortion, but I was glad he hadn’t had any yet.

Sharon looked surprised to see me when I knocked on her door. “Hi, Ben. Come on in. I was just about to call so I could check in with you.”

The décor of the room appeared to be made up of the castoffs from every other midpriced motel in the country. Everything, from the dresser to the desk to the headboard, had an old, used, banged-up look, not that anyone would ever mistake the furnishings for antiques.

“How did you find me?” she asked as she sat on the bed, leaving me the one chair in the room.

“I went by Jean’s and she told me you were gone. You didn’t have to leave so abruptly.”

“Please, I know exactly how much those rooms cost. I wasn’t about to stick you with another night’s stay on my bill.” She looked around the rundown room and somehow managed to say, “This is fine. At least for now.”

“I have to admit, for a minute there, I thought you were gone for good.”

She looked startled by the idea. “I’m not leaving until the police make an arrest. I told you that.”

“A great many people have been telling me a lot of things lately, but you’re the only one who seems to be standing by your word.”

She shrugged. “I don’t know how else to be. So, what can I do for you? I’d offer you a drink, but there doesn’t seem to be a minibar here.”

“There are a few things I’d like to talk to you about, but there’s no easy way to ask the questions I want answered.”

She smiled. “Heavens, don’t worry about offending me. I’m a big girl, I can take it.”

“First off, I understand your employer had two male visitors while she was staying at the bed-and-breakfast.”

Sharon shook her head. “That’s why I like the anonymity of a motel. Nobody cares who comes and goes.”

“Did you know that Connie had visitors?”

“Of course I did,” she said. “Their arguments would have been hard to miss hearing.”

“What were they fighting about?”

Sharon idly played with the bedspread, and I saw part of it start to unravel. “What does anyone ever fight about? It was love, from the sound of it.”

“Do you know who came by?”

“I couldn’t miss them; my door was wide open. First Barry came by. He wanted to reconcile, but she wasn’t having any of it. Then he started getting nasty, and she threw him out.”

“Funny, he told me they were getting back together.”

Sharon laughed. “I highly doubt that. Once Connie was finished with a man, that was it. That was what was so odd about the cop who came by. He hadn’t given up, either.”

“Did you know about him?”

Sharon nodded, then stood and started pacing the room. “She showed me a photograph once and told me that Brian Ross was her first love. He wanted to rekindle things with her, but she actually laughed in his face when he suggested it.”

“Why didn’t you say anything about this when we talked before?”

She looked contrite. “I was trying to keep them both out of it through some misguided sense of loyalty I had to Connie. I’m sorry I misled you.”

“That leads me to my second line of questioning,” I said. “I’ve heard that you were much more to Connie than just her assistant. In fact, there’s a rumor going around that you’re mentioned prominently in her will and that she fired you.”

I was looking for some kind of reaction, but her laughter wasn’t the one I’d expected. “Ben, she fired me at least three times a week. Connie had a pretty volatile disposition, so I’d learned to take it in stride. She never failed to apologize the next day whenever she took her frustrations out on me.”

That made sense, knowing what I did about the woman. “How about the will? Do you inherit her fortune?”

“I wouldn’t know about that,” Sharon said abruptly.

“But you told me everything she did was filtered through you,” I pushed. “Wouldn’t you know exactly what was in her will?”

“Not that,” Sharon said. “Connie’s personal documents were out of bounds for me. Frankly, I don’t give much merit to the rumor that I’m inheriting anything. It was made clear enough that my only pay was for the job I performed.” As she stared out the window, she added, “Why don’t they just arrest Betsy Blair and be done with it? There’s no doubt in my mind she killed Connie.”

“How can you be so certain, especially with so many other people around who wished her ill?”

Sharon snorted. “You should have seen the way she confronted Connie here. When Betsy left, she had pure hatred in her eyes.”

“I talked to her earlier, and she seemed pretty sane to me. She makes a strong case for her point of view.”

That seemed to enrage Sharon. “You’ve got to be kidding me. You’re a soapmaker, but you obviously don’t know anything about writing.”

“What I saw looked pretty solid,” I said.

“You’re wrong,” she said. “Hang on a second.” As she dug through her oversized briefcase, she said, “I found a copy of Betsy’s manuscript in Connie’s suitcase. What she told me before was true. It’s terrible.”

“And that’s the first time you saw it?” If Sharon had acted as Connie Brown’s filter, it appeared that a great deal got past her.

Sharon frowned. “I told you already. Betsy got around me somehow and gave it directly to Connie. I kept telling her she couldn’t accept anything from strangers, especially manuscripts, but sometimes she did it anyway. Here it is.”

Sharon thrust a thin sheaf of pages at me. It appeared they’d been created on an aging manual typewriter. The impact of each letter varied from nearly piercing the page to barely skimming it, and the ribbon had probably been new thirty years ago. It only took me a second to realize the two documents I’d seen—both sworn to be Betsy’s manuscript—were vastly different. So which one was legitimate?

“This isn’t the one I saw,” I admitted. “Could this version have been faked?”

She snatched it out of my hands. “Are you accusing Connie of something, Ben? I won’t have you speaking ill of her, do you hear me?”

“I’m not accusing anyone of anything. Would you mind if I borrowed that? I want to show it to Molly.”

She shook her head and stowed it back in her briefcase. “Sorry, but if Betsy still decides to sue, I need it as evidence of just how different this and Connie’s book is. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m a little tired right now.”

“Of course,” I said. Her dismissal was pointed and cool: a rapid descent from the warmth of our earlier conversation. Could that manuscript be the key to the murder? I wanted to see it again, but it didn’t look like I’d get that chance without Molly by my side, and I didn’t see that happening anytime soon. Speaking of Molly, I wondered if there was any way I could get her to tell me what Connie’s will said. If I asked her outright, she’d probably laugh in my face. But what if I brought her some information she didn’t already have? I could pass off my acquisition of the knowledge coming from a casual conversation with Sharon, though I doubted it would fool Molly. Still, I had to try. It wouldn’t do to call her on her cell phone, though. I’d have to wait until I saw her again, and given the state of her relationship with my brother, the best place to find her was probably at the soap shop, so I decided to head back there.

When I walked back into Where There’s Soap, Kate handed me a note. “You need to call this guy back. He sounded pretty upset. What did you do, Ben?”

“Now how could I possibly answer that unless you’re a lot more specific than that with your question? I’ve done any number of things to make people mad in the last few days alone. Sometimes it feels like that’s all I ever manage to do.”

Kate patted my cheek. “At least you’re really good at it.”

I looked at the message, but there was just a phone number on it.

“Kate, who exactly was it that called me?”

“He wouldn’t give his name,” she said. “I asked.”

“Fine, I’ll call him back in a little bit.”

“I wouldn’t wait too long,” she said. “Just from my little time on the telephone with him, I don’t think he’s somebody you want to make mad.”

I tucked the note in my pocket and went in back to look for Jeff. Jim and Bob were working on the line, making a run of lavender soaps poured in flower molds.

“You guys have the most delicate touch,” I said as they pulled soaps from their molds.

Jim snapped, “That’s enough out of you, girlie man.”

“What’s your problem?” I asked him.

Jim explained, “This lunatic actually thinks we should branch out into more spa treatments than Kate suggested, and now you’re standing there making fun of my lavender soap. If I had the chance, I’d trade both of you dead even for a car, and then I’d leave it running with the keys in it.”

Bob patted Jim on the back. “He’s got such a sweet spirit, doesn’t he?”

“It’s underwhelming,” I said. “Have you two seen Jeff lately?”

Jim looked at his watch. “He’s late. Having lunch with that ex-girlfriend of yours again. I can’t believe how well you’re taking the two of them dating.” Was it my imagination, or was he disappointed with my reaction?

“Hey, live and let live, you know? As far as I’m concerned, she’s not my anything anymore. She and Jeff are starting off fresh, and if something comes of it, they both have my blessing. When they get back, tell Molly I need to talk to her, okay?”

“Sure,” Bob said, then he turned to Jim. “Listen, just try the hand lotion. It’s great. Feel how soft my hands are already.”

Jim said, “When you see me with an earring, an eye patch, and a parrot on my shoulder, then I’ll try your hand cream.”

“It’s not mine,” Bob protested. “It’s some of the stuff we made with Kate.”

“You’re wasting your breath,” Jim said.

Bob looked at me and said, “Come on, Ben, tell him he can still be manly and use this stuff.”

“You’re not dragging me into this.”

“Coward,” Bob said.

“I’d say he’s smart,” Jim replied.

Kate came hurrying back. I said, “Come here a second, we want you to settle whether it’s manly or not to use hand lotion.”

She didn’t rise to the bait. “Ben, did you call that man back?”

“No, I just got here, remember?”

She frowned. “Well, you don’t have to worry about returning his phone call now. He’s in the shop, and he’s demanding to see you.”

I peeked out the door and saw Barry Hill standing near the register with a look of anger on his face. Kate snuck up beside me, with my brothers close behind us both.

“He looks pretty ticked,” Jim said. “You want some company?”

“I can handle him,” I said.

Bob put a hand on my shoulder. “If you need us, use a code word and we’ll come running. Now what should we use?”

Jim said, “How about, ‘This guy’s getting ready to kick my fanny.’ That works for me.”

Kate said, “I can tell him you’re not here if you’d like me to. That might give him a chance to cool off.”

“No, I’ll talk to him.”

As I approached Connie’s most recent ex-fiancé, I said, “I hear you’re looking for me.”