Dead on Ice (17 page)

“It was a donation to a yard sale,” Doris said.

“It broke after only five days.”

“You only paid fifty dollars for it. What did you expect?”

When the two women charged at each other, Joshua stood up between them and held out his arms to keep them apart. “What did I say about you two starting trouble?”

His warning was enough to make them back up and fall silent.

“Very good.” He turned to Mildred. “What happened to the freezer you bought at the yard sale?”

She scoffed. “What do you think happened? It wouldn’t work. So I had Ralph haul it out to the landfill.”

He took a chance and asked, “I don’t suppose you remember what year that was?”

Mildred made a noise from deep in her throat. “Of course, I do. I have a memory like an elephant.”

Doris scoffed.

Mildred folded her hands across her midriff. “I remember everything based on what was happening with my family at the time. I bought that freezer at the yard sale—I’ll have you know that I don’t usually buy used items. I also make it a point not to buy wholesale or at discount stores, but the yard sale that year was to raise money for underprivileged families in—”

“Today, Mrs. Hildebrand!” Joshua blurted out.

“May 1985.”

Surprised that she was able to narrow it down to the month, he asked, “How can you be so sure?”

Pleased by his reaction, Mildred stuck out her chest. She smirked when she answered, “It was the same month Trish, my third daughter, graduated from high school. She was with me that day when we bought it.”

Chapter Twelve

Their luncheon date turned into a massage session in Joshua’s study.

That morning, Joshua was quietly reading the Review while sipping his coffee when he heard the garbage truck turn the corner. That was when he discovered Donny had failed to take the garbage cans out to the curb. Wearing only his bathrobe and slippers, Joshua slid down the icy driveway in a race against the garbage collectors to get the cans out to the curb before they drove by.

Joshua won by a nose. He also lost when, on his way inside, he slipped on the ice and landed flat on his back in the driveway.

After listening to him groaning through half of lunch, Cameron ordered him to take off his shirt and lay down on the rug. Intrigued with what she was going to do, he complied. Once he was on his stomach, she straddled his back.

“We have an audience,” he told her.

Her hands on his shoulders, Cameron stopped to see Irving sitting in the doorway. His glaring eyes were aimed at Joshua, who was staring back at him. “Irving,” she said in a sharp tone. “Behave.”

The black and white cat paused as if to consider her order before standing up, his tail straight up in the air, and stalking across the study to Joshua’s desk. There, he waited.

Suspicious, Joshua twisted around to see what he had in mind.

Once Irving was assured he had Joshua’s attention, he jumped up onto the desk, circled around on top of his papers, and plopped down.

“He did that on purpose,” Joshua said.

“Ignore him.” Cameron urged him back down.

“Easy for you to say. He doesn’t hate you.”

“Put Irving out of your mind, and concentrate on my hands.” She resumed giving his back a deep massage.

Within seconds of pushing her attitude-filled skunk cat out of his mind, Joshua replaced his groans with moans of pleasure. “Where did you learn to do this?”

“My late husband used to come home with horrible backaches from riding in the cruiser all day. One of my massages would snap him right back into shape.”

An awkward silence filled the room.

It was the first time Cameron had ever mentioned her late husband.

Joshua tried to remain cool. Bingo! She knows that I know about him.

Her soft slender hands felt so warm on his back that Joshua feared he was going to fall asleep.

Her voice woke him up. “Harry called me a bitch.”

“Detective Shannon,” Joshua recalled the retired detective who had first worked Angie Sullivan’s disappearance. “What did you do to him?”

“Why do you think I did something to him?”

“He wouldn’t call you that if you didn’t give him a reason.”

“I called to tell him about uncovering the rumor, which proved to be true, about Doris being Angie’s mother,” she said. “Even if Brianne, Ned, and Kyle kept quiet; Harry should have found out about it during his investigation from someone or somewhere. He says he did hear murmurings, but claimed it was nothing more than schoolgirl gossip mongering and irrelevant. I told him that until it was proven to not be part of the case it has to be treated as a lead, and he should have put it in his notes.” She clutched his shoulders with her hands so hard, her fingernails dug into his flesh. “That was when he called me a bitch.”

Saying nothing, Joshua rubbed his face into the carpet.

“Aren’t you going to say anything?” She wanted confirmation that she was right, and Detective Shannon was guilty of mishandling his investigation.

Instead, he asked, “What do you want me to say?”

“You always have something to say. It’s who you are.”

He sighed. “You’re both right.”

“You are such a politician.”

“I am not a politician.”

“Yes, you are.” With a laugh in her voice, she halted the massage with her hands on his shoulders. “Don’t tell me you don’t have an opinion about this. Harry should have reported what Cheryl and Angie were fighting about that night. It could have led to the motive for her murder. How could he not have known that? And I don’t understand how you can’t see that.”

After a long heavy sigh, Joshua said, “It’s a double-edge sword.”

“What are you talking about?”

““You’re not in Philadelphia anymore, Cam.” With a pain-filled groan, he twisted to tell her over his shoulder, “Doris Sullivan is a farmer in Hookstown. In these parts, a word of gossip flies as swiftly as the winter wind off the river, and it cuts even deeper. Maybe it’s the downside of everyone knowing and caring about their neighbor. Some people don’t know where to draw the line between needing to know out of genuine concern and wanting to know in order to cast judgment.”

Cameron said, “I’m not casting judgment. I’m trying to find out who killed Cheryl Smith . . . . and Angie Sullivan’s murder is your case.”

“I’m very aware of that,” he said. “But Angie was the only family Doris had left, and she lost her. Why hurt her any further by publicizing a family secret that may or may not be true, and which may or may not be relevant to Angie’s murder?”

“There’s a big, thick line between publicizing gossip and investigating a lead,” she said. “Besides, Gail Hildebrand told me flat-out that it’s not a rumor. It’s true. She overheard her father and Doris talking about it.”

“Ralph?”

“Yes, Ralph. Ralph Hildebrand was Angie’s father.”

“I’ll be—” He stopped. “Ralph knew?”

She nodded her head. “According to his daughter Gail.”

“How about Mildred?”

“Gail says she’s in denial.”

“La-la Land.” He felt her shift her weight to concentrate on his middle back. In doing so, she pressed the air out of his lungs. “Mildred confirmed that she had bought Doris’s freezer . . . and hauled it out to the landfill. That means it was out of Doris’s possession when Cheryl came back to town.” He turned his head. She was so close that he could see the green specks in her hazel eyes. “Ralph took it to the landfill.”

“Ralph was Angie’s birth father.” She rose to allow him to sit up. “Doris Sullivan was also the only one who went down into that basement that morning.”

Joshua shook his head. “Other people had been in the basement.”

“Moments before I noticed the bomb?” she asked. “Doris Sullivan lives next door. She’s known Albert their whole lives.”

“Albert also played a big role in Cheryl leaving town after Angie’s disappearance,” Joshua pointed out. “Doris says she forgave him but, being a parent, I find it hard to believe she would have been able to completely let it go. I know I’d have a hard time forgiving someone for that.”

“At some point over the years, Albert had to have given her a key to his place for in case of an emergency . . .” she said, “or hiding a dead body.”

He took her hand, placed it on his bare shoulder, and turned around to stretch out on the floor. The unspoken message was for her to return to work at massaging his back while thinking about that. “Even if that was Doris’s freezer, it was out of her possession at the time of Cheryl’s murder. Cheryl knew that she was a person of interest in Angie’s murder. Doris Sullivan would have been the last person she would have gone to for help when she came back to town.”

“Unless Doris killed Angie.” She reminded him, “According to Randy’s daughter, Cheryl saw the murder, and the killer paid her way to Hollywood. Otherwise, where did she get the money to leave town back in 1978?”

“I don’t think Doris killed Angie,” he said. “I can see her killing Cheryl, but not Angie.”

“Maybe Ralph killed Angie to keep word from getting out about him being her father. Mildred is an extremely proud woman,” she said. “Appearances are most important to her. I’ve seen more than one murder where the wife flipped out after finding out that her husband had a child by another woman. Knowing that, Ralph may have felt like he had no choice but to get rid of Angie when Cheryl started spreading the word about her being Doris’s daughter and not her sister.” She tapped his shoulder with her fingertip. “Ralph Hildebrand certainly had the dough to pay Cheryl’s way to Hollywood. Not only that, but he was the last one in possession of the freezer. When Cheryl came back for more dough, he killed her to put an end to the blackmail.” In delight, she patted his back with both hands. “There you have it. We solved both murders.”

Joshua shook his head. “Killing Angie wouldn’t have achieved that motive. If anything, it started tongues wagging more about her.”

“But with Angie out of the picture, Mildred was better able to ignore the truth.”

“How is it possible that a looker like Cherry Pickens comes flying into a small town like Chester or Hookstown in a fire-engine red Ferrari and nobody notice?” He rolled over onto his back. “What happened to that car?”

Without his asking, she straddled him and began massaging his chest. Her hands felt so good that he didn’t resist. “Brianne Davenport collects sports cars.”

“Where did you hear that?” Joshua asked.

“She told Donny when she was hitting on him. She invited him to take one for a spin.”

Clasping her hands, Joshua gazed into her eyes. “She invited my sixteen-year-old son to take one of her sports cars for spin?”

“I think between the lines she was asking him to take her for a spin.”

“I wonder if she has a Ferrari,” he said.

With a gasp, Cameron recalled Brianne telling Donny that she owned a Ferrari. “Cheryl had Brianne’s direct line number in her pocket. The two of them used to be friends. She had to know that Brianne collected sports cars.” With each point she made, she stabbed him in the chest with her fingernail.

He grasped her finger and kissed it. “Cheryl was desperate to get out of the country, and probably for a fix. She had a hundred-thousand dollar sports car.”

She moved in closer. “Cheryl had that phone number for Brianne Davenport because she was trying to unload the Ferrari to make her getaway.” She scratched her head. “Why come all the way back here to Chester and Hookstown from Vegas? She could have unloaded that car a thousand places between Vegas and here. She had no family here. What drew her here?”

Deep in thought, Joshua said more to himself, “Maybe after all those years in Hollywood making movies, with the likes of people like Humphrey Phoenix, she thought the only people she could count on and trust to help her were those friends she had back home.”

“Only she ended up being wrong.”

“Which friend killed her?” he asked humorlessly. “The manipulative cougar, the cheating husband, or the bitter computer geek?”

“We need to get someone to talk to us.” Cameron pressed her forehead against his.

“Which one?”

“How about Donny’s girlfriend?”

“Kaden?” Joshua asked.

“Brianne Davenport.”

“She’s not my girlfriend.” Joshua whispered into her ear.

“You tell her that,” she whispered into his. “I want to set a trap.”

Her hot breath on his neck sent a shiver all the way down his spine. “What kind of trap are you talking about?” He kissed her.

“A good one.” She brushed her fingers across his cheek. “I want to use your son for bait.”

They were startled by the clearing of a throat. Joshua almost knocked her out of his lap when he rolled over to see Donny smirking at them in the doorway with his arms folded across his chest. “So this is what you do when you’re home alone while I’m at school.”

Chapter Thirteen

“Dad, I know where to find the VIN number.” Donny did the teenaged eye-roll when Joshua asked him for the fifth time about locating the vehicle identification number on Brianne’s Ferrari.