Cancelled by Murder (9 page)

M
y commute to work should have been uneventful. The skies were clear, traffic normal. But my head ached, as it did when I was a kid and had a chocolate hangover the day after Halloween. And many other days in the year, I recalled.

Stopped at a light, I reached to massage my lower back. I'd twisted my spine somehow, possibly while rechecking the condition of my car in my driveway. I'd wanted to take advantage of the daylight to look for scratches or other marks, and to be sure I hadn't had any unwelcome visitors during the night.

I had a moment of embarrassment over the lies I'd told Eileen. Would a confession to her make it better or worse? Or was it enough that I promised myself I'd never carry out such a charade again? I blamed Cliff in part, for talking me into sleuthing. I blamed Quinn for not being here to stop
me. And I blamed Sunni for not inviting me to share in the investigation in an open way.

As I drove I kept looking at the empty passenger seat, trying to picture how my property was stolen yesterday. Whose hands had snatched my dinner and my files from the gray cushion? A hungry homeless man? A masked man, a killer who was a stranger to the town? I doubted it as much as I doubted that such a drifter was responsible for Daisy's murder. I preferred to believe I'd been the victim of a couple of kids with sticky fingers from oversized soft drinks, or teenagers high on their parents' stash of something stronger.

I replayed my actions on parking the car yesterday evening. I wanted to convince myself that I had left the car unlocked in my agitated state at the time, from following the intruder into the fabric shop, and therefore, my car was easy pickings. It was nothing personal, I told myself over and over. Just as the nasty
do your job
note was nothing personal.

Still, as I parked in my spot today, I scanned the area in a way that was different from yesterday. Later, as I hoisted the flag, I glanced across the lawn at my car, the only one in the lot at this hour. I hurried into the building through the side door, locked it, and headed for the sorting area, my heart rate returning to normal only after a few minutes of routine stuffing of post office boxes.

I focused on filling the boxes with letters, flyers, and postcards, pausing a few times to fill out a form for pickup at the counter when an oversized piece came through. I resisted the temptation to stand at the window and keep watch over my car. I knew I'd be nervous until it was time to open the doors and get caught up in new activity in the building.

No personal (or not personal) hate mail today. That was
a break. As if to teach me a lesson (“you're not off the hook yet”), the universe sent me a person of interest in a homicide as my first customer. Jules Edwards was at the head of the line when I unlocked the front doors for business. Not that I had assigned a motive to him—I'd scrapped the idea of an affair between him and Daisy as soon as it formed—but they had seen a lot of each other during her last eight or ten days on earth.

Jules and I stood, eye-to-eye, across my counter. “Hey, Cassie,” he said. “One good thing about having to do my own errands today since my assistant is out sick—I get to say hi to a lot of people I seldom see.”

I greeted him with a weak smile, aware of his name in my suspect column. “How are you doing?” I asked, assuming he'd know what I meant: now that one of your clients is no longer with us.

Jules's face took on a sad expression. I'd estimated that he was middle-aged, possibly in his mid-fifties, Cliff's age, ten years older than Daisy. “It'll never be the same, will it?” he said.

I shook my head. “I hope the police are making headway in the investigation. Whoever did this needs to be caught,” I said.

“For sure.”

While we were talking, I weighed and stamped a dozen thick envelopes that were over the one-ounce limit for first class, all from Jules's accounting practice to businesses in Berkshire County. I wondered if the packets contained informational literature, solicitations offering his services, now that he had an opening for a new client.

“Have you been able to help them at all?” I asked,
affixing an extra-weight stamp to an envelope headed to Pittsfield, Massachusetts.

“Excuse me?” Jules looked confused. “Help to . . . ?”

“The police. I just assumed they would have talked to all of Daisy's employees and business associates.”

“Yeah, yeah, of course, they interviewed me,” Jules said. “I'm sure they're doing their best.”

I noticed his nervous twitch and wondered if there were any forensic studies linking criminal activities to peculiarities like twitching. On one of our more interesting lunch dates, Sunni had taught me about anthropological criminology, the early attempts to link physical appearance, like the shape of one's head and the distance between one's eyes, to criminal behavior. I wished I had time to examine Jules for some of the correlations made in those early days. Large sinuses, sloping shoulders, large chest, and small forehead with wrinkles were a few that I remembered—features that it seemed everyone in line today exhibited. And what exactly was a “large incisor”? No wonder the “criminals are born” theory hadn't made much headway.

As I responded to my own need to scratch my nose, Jules leaned a bony elbow on the counter. “I just remembered—Cliff wants to meet with me to go over some accounting points for the fabric shop, and he suggested that you be there, too, Cassie. Do you have any idea why?”

“I guess it's because Daisy handled the financial aspects of the business, and Cliff wants to get up to speed,” I offered.

“Sure, sure. But I mean, why would he want you there?” His expression gave every indication that he thought it would be a dumb idea. Or that he thought I was dumb. Or both.

If I believed in vibes, I'd have called the one coming from
Jules chilly, as if he were daring me to defend my right to be at the meeting. A meeting I didn't want to go to in the first place. But Jules's challenge gave Cliff's invitation a new twist, and in my special perverseness, I made up my mind to be there.

“I guess we'll find out,” I said. I took Jules's money, handed back his change and receipt, and addressed the woman behind him, who'd been showing signs of impatience. “I'm sorry to keep you waiting,” I said to her, holding out my arms to receive her oversized package. Jules gave me a slight frown and a salute of some kind and left the counter.

I could hardly wait for our meeting.

*   *   *

I shouldn't have been surprised when Cliff came by at lunch with another copy of his files and another set of white take-out boxes, the latter oozing the aroma of cashew nut chicken.

“You don't always have to bring food,” I said, thinking especially of the hard time I had holding on to it. Or ever tasting it. The earlier chicken dinner had gone to the starving chief of police, and the shrimp scampi went the way of stolen goods never to be recovered.

“I've been meaning to try the new Thai place at the other end of Main,” Cliff said as we made our way to the community room. Once more we took advantage of volunteers setting up for an event and entered through the unlocked door from the outside. A large banner across the stage welcomed freshmen for orientation. Cliff addressed a high
school student who seemed to be part of the team preparing for the program.

“We usually have lunch here at this back table,” Cliff told him, setting down the now-familiar plastic boxes and folders he'd carried in.

The young man, who had my vote for Cutest Homecoming King, scratched his head through his blond buzz cut. He looked around, anxious, but apparently saw no one above his pay grade. “I don't know,” he said.

Cliff continued to set our table, so to speak, oozing authority, an attitude probably linked to his training as a security guard. “Don't worry; you won't have to clean up after us. We always take care of it ourselves.”

I wanted to come out to the cute guy and admit that we'd done this only one other time, that it was not the regularly scheduled event Cliff made it out to be, and that we had no more permission to use the room as a lunchroom than any other citizen of the town. Since our students shared one high school with students in South Ashcot, where the school was located, I guessed the cute guy was from there and didn't recognize either of us.

The boy slinked away. I hoped he wasn't on his way to find a legitimate authority figure.

“Aren't you a little ashamed of pulling rank like that, buffaloing a poor teenager?” I asked Cliff, half teasing.

“Shouldn't they be in school anyway?” he countered.

“It's summer. And anyway, I think schedules today are more flexible than when we were in school.”

“You mean me. I guess I'm an old man. But”—he pointed to the young man, busily placing literature on the rows of
chairs—“as long as I can make my muscle work for me . . .” He ended with a smile and a shrug.

Cliff opened the tabs on our containers, releasing even stronger aromas of whatever Thai sauces were made of. I felt a pang of guilt as I wished I were sharing it with Quinn, or even Sunni, rather than with a guy who might be leading me into an obstruction of justice charge.

“When is our meeting with Jules?” I asked, now almost eager to be in the condescending moneyman's presence again.

“Can you make it this evening?”

With Quinn away I had nothing better to do on a Friday night, and I wanted to get all the meetings and investigative tasks behind me and, given a miracle, the case solved, before he returned on Sunday. “As long as it's after five,” I said.

“Great. I'll text him.” He pulled out his smartphone and got to work. “I'm just getting used to this, but everybody these days sort of demands it,” he said.

“E-mailing is so yesterday,” I said with a smile.

Cliff struggled with his wide thumbs, switching now and then to his pinkie, while I sampled a tender, flaky chunk of chicken, followed by a perfectly coated cashew. Although his bulky appearance suggested he was the fast food, quick burger type, apparently the man was a foodie, as attested to by his choice of takeout.

“Any news?” he asked when he'd finished the text.

I wanted to tell him about Molly's fib just to impress him, assure him that I was on the job, so to speak, but I knew that wasn't a good idea. I had the feeling that he'd jump on any possible lead and take it to a sorry end. I couldn't do that to Molly, or anyone else, without more information.

“I'm following up with the quilters' group, but nothing stands out. How about you?”

Cliff opened his folder, his lunch still untouched. “I talked to Reggie Harris about the farmers' market proposal.”

I'd almost forgotten about the second part of the altercation that had broken out at the quilters' meeting. Andrea, Reggie's wife, had been the object of Liv's ridicule. I had to smile as the image of fabric featuring an overly pink mermaid came to mind. Andrea had escalated the drama by accusing Liv of, at least, being happy about the death of her competitor in greeting cards, and at most, possibly causing it. What had followed was an escalation of insults, including one about Reggie's sponsorship of the farmers' market proposal.

Cliff had continued talking, not noticing that my attention had gone elsewhere. I picked up his thread as he was making a confession. “. . . have to admit I feel awful trying to capitalize on sympathy for me as I more or less interrogate my friends. I know I should be in seclusion or something, but I can't sleep”—or eat, I thought, looking at his full box of Thai chicken—“until I figure out what happened to my wife, the love of my life. And going through her things? I can't handle it right now.”

His last words were barely audible. It was bound to happen. Cliff broke down, as I should have expected. His head fell to his chest, and his shoulders shook with his sobs. His body seemed to sway from side to side. The lucky thing was that the high school contingent had taken a break and made a picnic scene on the floor of the stage at the front of the room. The kids' talk and laughter bounced off the walls and drowned out any sounds coming from Cliff's grief. The last
thing to interest them would be two old folks in the back, folks who had at one time been in school, which had started and ended at the same time every day.

I was at a loss for how to respond to Cliff. We'd been sitting across the back table from each other, on folding chairs. Not wanting to draw attention from anyone who happened to be glancing our way, I reached out and put my hands around Cliff's, which were clasped together. I uttered a word of sympathy—not useful, but I hoped he'd feel my support. At that moment, I wanted nothing more than to help him find Daisy's killer and promised myself to stop wavering.

After a couple of minutes, I handed him a napkin from the pile between us. “I'm so sorry, Cliff,” I said again, and pushed his bottle of water toward him. “You should at least drink some water. You're not going to be any use to anyone unless you take care of yourself.”

What a surprise. I found myself uttering words I'd heard over and over when my parents died. I wondered if anyone, anywhere, knew what words or actions would have an impact at times like this.

He lifted his head, dried his face with the napkin. I waved away his “Sorry,” and he was ready to continue.

“Daisy was in deeper than I thought,” he said. When I looked confused, he clarified. “The farmers' market issue?”

“Right,” I said. “Your talk with Reggie Harris.” Which seemed to have been mentioned hours, not minutes ago.

He pulled a printed sheet from his folder. He was back to work. The eight-and-a-half-by-eleven page showed marks that suggested it had been crumpled, then smoothed out for copying.

He placed the sheet in front of me. “Last week, Daisy
wrote this letter to the
Town Crier
for the Letters to the Editor page. There's pretty strong language here, singling out Reggie, calling him some kind of traitor, saying he didn't care about local merchants and on and on, even accusing him of profiting somehow if the farmers were allowed to move in.”