A Treasure to Die For (20 page)

Bonnie was surprised to see us when Fred and I showed up at the bookstore, but Patty wasn’t. The lines in her forehead, and frown on her face painted a picture of complete despair.

“You know, don’t you, Jake?” Patty asked after letting us in.

Bonnie stood there with her mouth open.

“The tape, Bon. I thought it was odd that Patty didn’t want me to see what was on it.”

Turning to Patty, I continued. “If you had ever had children, you would know the fastest way to get them to do something is to tell them not to do it.”

I finished by speaking to Bonnie. “It was Patty who planted evidence to frame you, and guess who was waiting for her in his beat-up Toyota?”

“Craig Renfield? They were in it together?” Bonnie had found her voice. “Why, Patty? I thought I was your best friend.”

“No, not Renfield,” I said, before Patty could speak. “He doesn’t have the brains to weave such a web. I think he was hired help. The real mastermind is Paul Wilson, isn’t it, Patty?”

Patty nodded her head and started to speak, but sobbed instead. I motioned toward some comfortable reading chairs and waited for the women to take a seat. She wiped her face with a tissue she must have had in her skirt pocket.

“Have you ever wanted something so bad you’d be willing to kill for it?” Patty asked.

Before anyone could answer, she turned toward Bonnie, and continued. “I’m so sorry, Bon. You know how much the store in Boulder meant to me. I thought the money Paul promised me would let me start over. I didn’t mean to hurt anyone.”

Bonnie’s astonishment quickly turned to rage. Eyes that were larger than quarters a moment earlier were now smaller than a dime. “You set me up for Shelia’s murder?” She was nearly screaming.

Fred must have sensed how upset Bonnie was, and went over to her, and put his head on her lap. She instantly calmed down. “I’m sorry, Freddie. Did I scare you?”

He answered the best he could, with sad, forlorn eyes, while keeping his tail between his legs.

She reached out to rub his ears while turning to me. “I don’t understand, Jake. Why would Wilson bribe her to frame me for murder?”

“That’s not why he was paying her off. Is it, Patty?” I asked.

“No.” she answered without looking up.

I stood up, realizing it must have made me a look like a caricature from an old black and white murder movie, but spoke anyway. “Wilson paid her to get Shelia’s book, and when she wouldn’t sell, Patty killed her for it.”

I looked over for confirmation and took her silence for a yes. “Like she said, she was willing to kill to get back into the book business, and Shelia just happened to be in the way.”

Patty finally looked up. “I didn’t mean to. She was just so nasty to me, and kept calling me filthy names. She screamed for me to leave, and then picked up her nail file and threatened me. I grabbed her arm and tripped over something. The next thing I knew she was lying on the floor with the file in her neck.”

I stopped pacing back and forth and looked Patty in the eyes. “Why didn’t you go to the police then? It sounds like an accident to me. The worst they could have charged you with is manslaughter.”

“Paul wouldn’t let me. He knew the police would keep Shelia’s copy of
Tom Sawyer
. He said I could forget about the book store if I didn’t keep my mouth shut.”

“But it wasn’t the right book, so he went after my copy,” I said.

Patty had regained some of her composure and didn’t hesitate to answer this time. “Not him. I mean it was him, but he paid Appleton to steal it. But then Appleton decided to keep it.”

“So it must have been Appleton who broke into Paul Wilson’s house and stole all his notes? Is that why he killed Appleton, or did he get Cory to do it?”

“Yes and no, Jake. Yes, it was Appleton who stole Paul’s notes, but it was Craig Renfield who killed Appleton. Paul found out Renfield was a drug addict and reasoned he was really stoned the night I killed Shelia, so he convinced Renfield he had killed her, and wouldn’t tell if he took care of Appleton for him.”

She paused long enough to chuckle at whatever she was thinking. “Paul is some kind of genius, you know. He could have been Sherlock’s Moriarty. He told Renfield to borrow Cory’s truck because his Toyota might draw too much attention with its bad muffler. It was really a ploy to put the suspicion on Cory if someone saw them.”

“So it was Renfield driving away in the Datsun, and Wilson must have been in the F150 with Appleton?” I didn’t feel like commenting on Wilson’s intellectual capabilities.

“Yeah, he nearly spoiled his pants when he came back to get his notes and saw you and Bonnie standing on the deck with a shotgun.”

“Was Appleton already dead then, or did they shoot him full of drugs at the park?” I knew I had to get all the details before she realized what she was saying and quit talking.

Patty’s body language confirmed my fear, and she turned to Bonnie, crying again. “Please don’t go to the police, Bon. I’m
so
sorry, but hanging me won’t do anyone any good.”

It looked like Bonnie was about to explode. “You didn’t mind seeing
me
swing from a rope, and now you want me to forgive you?”

“Who do you think wrote Appleton’s suicide note?” Patty answered, no longer crying. “That was my idea so the police wouldn’t suspect you. I made Paul put it in the truck with Appleton.”

Bonnie just stared without answering, so Patty tried pleading with me instead. “I can get your book and ring back, Jake.”

“You know where the backpack is?” I asked.

“Your book wasn’t in there. Not when the kids got hold of it. That was another clever lie Paul made up to get you to go after the backpack. Appleton kept all Paul’s notes and his other loot in there, including Bonnie’s manicure kit, which he must have found at the signing when it fell out of Bonnie’s purse. He had it wrapped in a bloody shirt for some reason we will never know.”

She stopped and dried eyes that were no longer wet. “Anyway, Paul thought he might be able to use your book and ring as some kind of blackmail, so he removed those from the backpack before giving it to Renfield to put in the Datsun. That idiot Renfield forgot about the backpack and left it in the Datsun. When Cory found it, he must have realized what the notes meant, so he and his girlfriend went looking for the gold mine. That’s why Paul wanted it back so badly, for his notes, not your book. He realized the notes on the table you found were copies made from the flash drive. The originals were in the backpack.”

“Then where is Julie’s book?” I didn’t mention I thought it was Wilson who made the copies, and not Appleton, because I didn’t want her to stop talking. The notes I found at Appleton’s were printed on a dot-matrix printer. Appleton had an ink-jet. Only Wilson would have been old enough to own an antique printer.

Her tears were completely gone and replaced by a smile she must have borrowed from Wilson. “Are you going to the police?”

“No,” I lied. “Bonnie’s off the hook and if I get Julie’s book, well I never heard any of this did I?”

Patty got up and walked over to the check-out counter. A minute later she came back with Julie’s ring and copy of
Tom Sawyer
. She looked over at Bonnie before giving them to me. “Is it a deal, Bon?”

Bonnie nodded her head, and Patty handed everything to me.

“Thank you, Patty, but you realize you’re still in trouble, don’t you?”

Her eyes turned dark. “You promised!”

“Not me, Patty. You’re forgetting about your partner in crime, Paul Wilson,” I said, watching her eyes grow wider.

Bonnie gave me a look that mirrored Patty’s.

“The tape, girls. Why else would he plant the tape in Renfield’s trash and lure me into going there to find it? It’s his chance to kill two birds with one tape.” Any other time I’d expect a chuckle from my clever pun, but wasn’t surprised no one laughed.

“But he must know I’d tell everything once that tape was discovered,” Maggie said.

Fred raised his head and started to growl, and we all turned in time to see Paul Wilson emerge from the back of the store.

“But you won’t tell, my dear. Neither will any of you.” He stood with his Hannibal Lecter smile, and an automatic pistol pointing at us.

I grabbed Fred by his collar before he did something stupid. “You’re forgetting about your other partner, Paul. Renfield is bound to realize he’s next on your list and confess to save his butt.”

His smile grew bigger. “He won’t be talking to anyone but Saint Peter. Who do you think was behind his curtains watching to make sure you took my bait?”

“That was you?”

His smile faded when he pulled back the top of his gun to arm it. “And since dead men don’t tell tales, the tape should be all the cops need to think Patty killed everyone once I leave this gun in her hands.”

I let Fred go so I could grab for the gun, but Fred was on him before he could get off the first round. Fred bit into his arm, and Wilson dropped the gun, but not before firing a shot through the ceiling, and then we heard the sirens.

Deputy White tried to act like an upset parent even though he couldn’t be more than a few years older than me. “I told you to leave the detective work to the professionals. Don’t you realize you and your dog could have been killed?” White had come to my rescue after getting my voice mail. Jefferson County had also sent a deputy in response to my first call. They had left with Patty and Wilson once the proverbial dust had settled.

“At least he solved the case for you.” Bonnie must have had enough of the deputy scolding me. “You should be giving him a medal or something.”

White bent down to Fred’s level and held out his hand. “What do you think, Mr. Fred? Does your owner deserve a medal? It seems to me you did more to solve the crimes than he did.”

Fred barked then held out his paw for a handshake.

Richard Houston is a retired software engineer who now lives on Lake of The Ozarks with a view to die for. He and his wife are raising their great-granddaughter, two Dachshunds, and a Golden Retriever.

If you enjoyed this book, be sure to check out the others in the series:

A View to Die For
and

A Book to Die For