A Spoonful of Murder (25 page)

“Well, fine. You’ve done just that. And for your information,
if
, and that’s
if
, I owed her any money, then I would still owe that money to whoever represents her estate. And I think, young lady,” his voice became a harsh whisper, “you need to get the hell out of my office and this building right now.”

Lucky slipped out of the chair and put her hand on the doorknob. She turned back, trying her best not to let her voice tremble. “I just have one more question.”

“What?” Reed snarled.

“Was there more to your relationship than just business?” she asked quietly.

He placed his hand on the phone. “I’m calling security right now.”

“No need. I’m leaving.” She slipped through the door and hurried down the corridor, past the girl still reading the fashion magazine. Once out in the cold air of the parking lot, she took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Tom Reed could very well have been the person who tore up the house on Bear Path Lane and shoved her down the stairs. He was guilty of something. She just wasn’t sure if it was murder.

Lucky trudged back to her car. She noted that all the lots at the Resort had been plowed and swept clean—better even than the streets of the town. Reed had a very good reason to want Honeywell dead. Five million was a lot to come up with if he was hurting financially. His house, as nice as it was, couldn’t possibly generate that kind of a loan. Had he needed that cash to buy into the partnership and assure his position? With Honeywell dead, there’d be no need for him to meet the demand date of the promissory note. As he said, he would still owe the cash to her estate, but her death would buy him time. Honeywell must have had an attorney in Boston, and that attorney would have the information to track down Tom Reed. She would have been able to sue Reed personally, but would she have been able to cause financial difficulties for him at the Resort? Had Tom Reed torn up the bedroom on Bear Path Lane searching for the promissory note? It could take weeks, perhaps months, for an attorney to sort out her affairs and for someone to come knocking, asking for repayment. Was her attorney, whoever he or she might be, alerted to the fact, and ready to pounce? Or had she contacted a local attorney, licensed to practice law in this state?

Lucky reached her car and shoved the key in the lock. She needed to get back to the Spoonful. After her promise to Jack, she felt a bit guilty not giving him a heads-up about her plan to confront Reed, but she knew he’d never approve.

A footstep crunched in the snow behind her. She whirled to find Chance, smiling, and standing a bit too close for comfort. She felt a shiver of fear. She was some distance
from the office building and it was growing dark. No one knew she was here.

“Hey there!” Chance smiled a slow, suggestive smile. “We meet again.”

Lucky gulped, trying to recover from her initial scare. She backed up against the door of her car to move away from him. She finally managed a smile. “Just visiting.”

“Really? Here?” Chance looked around, obviously aware that the only near building housed the administration offices.

“I could ask you the same question.”

Chance smiled even more lazily. “Well, since you ask, I have a date with that cute little receptionist in there,” he said, pointing to the main entrance. “Very handy to have friends in administration—especially ones that keep you posted on the gossip.” He shoved his hands in his pockets. “Have you had any luck unearthing more dirt on our Ms. Honeywell?”

“Not really,” Lucky replied.

“Oh. I thought maybe that’s why you were visiting the offices of the big guns—Tom Reed to be more specific.” He raised one eyebrow and leaned lazily against the door of her car. Lucky didn’t respond to the taunt. “What was the name of your restaurant again? I’ll have to make sure I stop in next time I’m down in the town.”

“By the Spoonful. We run a soup shop—soup and other things.”

“Where is it? On Broadway?”

Lucky nodded. His nearness was making her uncomfortable. And after all, she thought with a chill, he had been involved with Honeywell too. For all she knew, Chance had lied through his teeth and had a very good motive to kill, maybe even better than Tom Reed. She turned her key in the lock and said, “Excuse me,” forcing Chance to move away and allow her to open her car door. She climbed in, but before she could close it, Chance laid his hand on the door-jamb and leaned closer. There was a glint in his eye that Lucky thought could turn nasty in a split second.

“I’ll definitely stop by real soon.” He smiled, watching
carefully for her response. She felt like a small mammal transfixed by a snake.

“That would be great,” she replied neutrally, reaching out to pull the door shut against his advances.
Did this work on most women,
she wondered?

Chance lifted his hand, but before she could shut her car door, he said, “Oh, actually I almost forgot. There was something I meant to tell you.”

“And what was that?” His casual attitude was irritating her no end.

“Well, one time Patsy twisted her leg—skiing. I saw her that night and it seemed it was bothering her. I offered to get her an appointment up here with one of the ortho docs, but she just laughed and said not to bother. Said she got all her medical treatments for free. Just struck me as strange—thought you might be interested, that’s all.”

“What did she mean by that?”

“Who knows? Maybe she had somethin’ going with one of the docs up here. The Resort offers everything. There are three on staff, two orthopedic guys and one trauma doc.”

Lucky remembered the card from the Snowflake Clinic she had found in Honeywell’s datebook and the brochure she had picked up from the Snowflake Clinic. She turned and rummaged in her purse. She handed the folded brochure to Chance.

“Did you ever see her with any of these people?” The cover showed a smiling group shot of the entire Clinic staff: Elias and Jon Starkfield, their assistant and nurse, the records clerk and Rosemary and Melissa, the two receptionists.

Chance took it from her outstretched hand and studied it briefly. He shook his head. “Nope. Never seen any of these people, much less any of them with Patsy.” He handed it back to Lucky. “Like I said, I didn’t see her that often. Only when she called.” He smiled again. “Sorry—not much help, I know.”

“Thanks anyway.”

Chance backed away and Lucky pulled her car door shut.
She drove slowly toward the gate and saw Chance in the rearview mirror watching her. He turned finally and headed for the administration building just as she reached the access road. Would Chance have passed on his information if he hadn’t accidentally run into her? Was their meeting an accident? She shivered. Had he somehow been keeping tabs on her? Ridiculous! She pushed the thought away.

As she drove, she replayed her conversation with Tom Reed. He had had an extreme reaction. Of course, in all fairness to him she had alternately accused him of infidelity and possibly murder. Maybe he was perfectly justified in his reaction, but there was something not quite right there, nonetheless.

And what exactly had Chance said?
Said she got all her medical treatments for free
. Was she seeing a doctor? Someone at the Resort where three doctors were on staff? Someone at the hospital in Lincoln Falls where many more doctors must have parking permits? Perhaps that’s what Josh saw the night he slipped on the ice, or was it someone closer to home? Someone in Snowflake? Chance thought Honeywell had a reason to be here—to be close to someone in Snowflake. A married man? Otherwise why would a woman who thought nothing of carrying on multiple affairs be secretive? There were only two doctors in Snowflake, and one was married. She thought of Elias but quickly pushed the thought away. It just couldn’t be possible.

Could Jon Starkfield not be the down-to-earth, likable man and devoted husband he appeared to be? Was that an act? His wife seemed a very charming woman, but that didn’t stop a lot of men from straying. Why would someone like him—a respected man in his fifties—carry on, especially with a woman like Patricia Honeywell, a socialite with money who knew no boundaries? There was only one person she should talk to and that was Elias—surely he would know Starkfield well enough to know if his partner were capable of such a thing.

When she reached Broadway, she drove past the restaurant. It was closed. Jack must have decided to close up and
go home. Hopefully one or two customers might have strayed in during the afternoon. There had to be someone within a ten-mile radius who hadn’t heard of the murder and didn’t suspect the Spoonful of harboring a murderer. It was frightening how quickly years of good reputation could be washed away by one dreadful act.

L
UCKY HEATED WATER
in the kettle to brew a cup of tea. She turned a kitchen chair toward the window and sat, staring out into the dark—a darkness carpeted by white snow. The old Victory Garden took up most of the square block area behind her apartment building. Its entrance was on Spruce Street to her left. A tall wooden fence separated the Garden from its neighbors and marked its entire perimeter. Maple, Elm and Spruce and the alleyway parallel to Broadway were the streets that formed the square block enclosing the Garden. To her right was the parking lot behind the Clinic with access only to Maple Street. From her perch she could see the top of the Spoonful, but the back fence of the Victory Garden blocked her view of the alleyway behind it.

She mulled over Chance’s remark once again. Jon Starkfield could fit the bill—local and married. She sipped her tea and thought about him and his wife. Jon and Abigail Starkfield—two opposite personalities—Jon, charming and distinguished and warm, and Abigail, pleasant but buttoned-up and conservative. Perhaps marriage was like that—people balancing each other out. She thought about her
parents, her Dad only slightly stricter than her Mom, but both of them open and friendly people, always ready to extend a helping hand to anyone who needed it. They were, in that respect, two peas in a pod, but perhaps some marriages weren’t like that at all. People married the people they needed to be with, a spendthrift and a frugal person, an outgoing spouse and an introverted one.

There were superficial similarities between Patricia Honeywell and Abigail Starkfield. Abigail must have been very pretty in her youth. The years had marked her, but Lucky could imagine her as a young woman, blonde curls framing her face, her figure slim. Patricia Honeywell, whatever one might think of her morality, had been very well liked by men. That could be especially tempting for a man who may have become bored with his wife of many years. Was Jon Starkfield a serial adulterer, or was his involvement—assuming he was the secret lover, Lucky reminded herself—an impulsive act, a mistake he later regretted? Perhaps once involved he couldn’t or wouldn’t extricate himself.

The promised warming trend had arrived and layers of ice were melting. A large chunk fell from the roof of the building and flew by Lucky’s kitchen window, landing with a thunk in a snowdrift in the garden below. Lucky leaned forward in her chair to look out. She slid the window open a few inches and placed some nuts on the windowsill, sure the squirrels would find them in the morning.

The garden behind her building shared a fence with the Victory Garden. In the center of that fence was a gate into the Garden, empty and covered with snow now that the town was in the depths of winter.

She pushed her window open and leaned out, careful not to go too far in case another chunk of ice fell from the roof. She craned her neck to get a better view. The Snowflake Clinic next door boasted a small parking lot that could accommodate perhaps eight cars at most. A chain link gate in that fence opened into the Garden. On the Broadway side, she knew, a wooden gate led from the Garden to the alleyway that ran behind the Spoonful.

What if Patricia Honeywell were carrying on a secret affair with Jon Starkfield? What if she hadn’t been killed at the Spoonful, but at the Clinic? Was she threatening to expose an affair and destroy his marriage? Was she pregnant with Starkfield’s child? If that were the case, that Honeywell threatened Jon Starkfield, could he have killed her? There were a lot of “ifs,” but the pregnancy and a secret lover implied a great deal of passion. Could that passion have led to murder?

Lucky cast her mind back to the discovery of the body by the Dumpster. She closed her eyes and tried to recall every detail of that shocking moment as Sage stood next to her. She remembered the tuft of hair sticking out of the ice and the light catching a sparkling earring dangling from one ear—the right ear. She was sure Nate had been searching for that other earring and hoping to find enough blood to prove she had been killed there. If that earring wasn’t behind the Spoonful, then it could have been knocked off during a struggle. And if there had been a struggle, that earring would be at the place where Patricia Honeywell was killed.

Lucky stared at the large square of snow in the center of her block—no one would be in the Victory Garden now. In spring, when the snow had melted, local residents, mostly retirees who were lucky enough to be allotted a small garden, would be clearing their plots of land, getting the earth ready for summer vegetables. No one would venture through the melting snow and mud now. It was possible those gates were never locked. If there had been an after-hours assignation and she had been killed at the Clinic or in the parking lot behind the Clinic, could Starkfield have dragged her body through the gate and across the Victory Garden to the alleyway behind the Spoonful?