Dearly Depotted (32 page)

 

 

 

 

M
y mouth fell open. Had Melanie killed Jack? I glanced quickly from Melanie to Josiah, but he only sank into an old wooden chair, pulled off his wire-rimmed glasses, and covered his face in his work-roughened hands.

I laid a hand on her arm and said gently, “Melanie, what are you telling me?”

“She’s telling you I didn’t do it,” Josiah replied wearily. He put his hands on his knees and rubbed the fabric with his palms. “But I did go to meet him in the gazebo.”

“So his death was an accident?” I asked, still not getting it.

“No! I don’t know! I went out to the gazebo to tell him to stay away from Melanie, but Jack was already dead when I got there.”

I shook my head, trying to absorb the startling news. “He was dead? You didn’t fight with him?”

“As God is my witness,” Josiah said, “I never laid a finger on Jack. He was lying there on the floor with blood all over his face. He wasn’t breathing, he wasn’t moving, and I got so scared, I ran back for Melanie and we left.”

Josiah raked his fingers through his thinning brown hair and said in a broken voice, “I just wanted him to leave my daughter alone, that’s all. He’d tortured her long enough.”

Melanie rose and went to stand beside him, her hand stroking his shoulder in a surprisingly touching gesture. “It’s okay, Papa.”

“So neither one of you killed him?”

Josiah looked incredulous and Melanie gaped at me, a horrified expression on her face. “Me? How could you think such a thing? He’s Josie’s father. I couldn’t hurt him.”

“I didn’t mean to offend you, but what was I supposed to think? You lied to get me out here, and then your father nearly attacked me. Look, I’m really sorry. I wish you’d been honest with me right from the start. Have you told the police what happened?”

Josiah shook his head. “I can’t. I’m afraid of what they might do.”

“So you lied to them, too.”

“I had to, don’t you see?” Josiah said, leaning forward. “Who’d provide for my family if I went to prison? I’m the one who puts the food on the table and keeps the roof over their heads. It’s
my
responsibility.” He thumped his chest. “Nothing’s going to jeopardize my family. Nothing.” He thrust out his chin and sat back. I knew he was stubborn enough to mean it.

I turned to Melanie. “Listen to me, you might have seen something that would help find Jack’s killer. You have to tell the police. There’s a man sitting in jail right now who could be facing the death penalty and who’s probably innocent. Do you want that on your conscience?”

Tears filled her eyes. “No,” she whispered, blinking them away. She patted her father’s slumped shoulders. “Abby’s right, Papa. You need to tell the police. It’ll be okay, I promise.”

It struck me suddenly that Melanie really loved her father, and he clearly loved her. It also struck me that neither one of them was guilty. But if they hadn’t killed Jack, who had?

The answer had to be on the video.

“Okay, listen,” I said. “I might have a lead to the real killer, but I need you to contact the police right away and tell them what you told me. Will you do that? Please?”

Josiah rose with a sigh. “I’ll do it right now.”

“Thank you.” I dashed out the door, jumped into the Vette, and searched for my cell phone in my purse. “It’s me,” I said when Grace answered. “Did you find the magnifier?”

“I’m still looking.”

“Okay, I’m on my way back to Bloomers. I’ll stop by your house as soon as I close up shop.”

“I’ll leave the door unlocked in case I don’t hear you knock. I may still be digging through that closet.”

I phoned Marco next and got his voice mail again, this time with a new message. “Not answering. Speak,” it said. I told him about Josiah’s confession, feeling pretty proud of myself. Amateurish perhaps, but I was putting that puzzle together. With a little luck, those faces on the video would be the last two pieces.

“Call me as soon as you get this,” I said, “and would you please record a different message, because the one that’s on there now sounds like a load of—”

A beep cut me off. It was just as well.

 

Late that afternoon I was snipping away at a bunch of house bamboo for a large Oriental-themed arrangement that a customer wanted first thing in the morning, when I heard Sheila’s voice in the outer room. Oddly, she didn’t sound like her normal, chatterbox self. A few moments later the curtain parted and she stuck her head through. She didn’t
look
her normal chatterbox self either. Her hair seemed to have been hastily combed and her long face was stretched taut as though something had unnerved her.

She noticed the stems in my hand and said, “Am I bothering you?”

“No. Come on in.”

She was wearing baggy jeans and a T-shirt with a slogan that said DANGER. PMS ZONE, and she had a large paper sack in her hands. “Can I sit here?” she asked, pointing to Lottie’s stool.

“Of course.”

“Thanks,” she said, then eased onto the stool as if she were in pain and put the sack on the table, wincing as she lowered her arm. Then I noticed a discoloration on her jaw.

I stopped what I was doing and went over. “Sheila, what happened to you?”

She covered the mark on her face and gave me a reproachful glance. “You talked to Gunther last night, didn’t you?”

“Why?” I asked with a sinking feeling.

She raised both sleeves over her shoulders, revealing finger-shaped bruises.

“Oh, my God. Don’t tell me Gunther did that.”

“You shouldn’t have told him what I said, Abby. That was just between us girls. He was all over me, accusing me of gossiping and persecuting him . . . I’ve never seen him so mad.”

I stared at the marks in horror. “I’m so sorry, but I swear I never mentioned your name. He didn’t even seem angry after I talked to him.”

She let out a wavering sigh and covered her shoulders. “What’s done is done. I don’t hold it against you. I know you didn’t mean to get me in trouble.”

“I won’t go see him again, Sheila, I promise. I hope you reported him to your boss.”

“No way. Anthony would fire us both. He hates fighting among his staff. Besides, I don’t know how Gunther would react if I got him in more trouble.”

“He’s a bully, Sheila. You can’t let him threaten you. If you can’t talk to Anthony, then go to the police.”

“Yeah, right,” she said, rolling her eyes. “That will make things better. Look, I can take care of myself. Don’t worry about me.”

She started to get up, then noticed the sack. “Oh, I almost forgot these,” she said dejectedly. She removed a wicker bread basket and set it on the table. The basket was mounded with golden muffins, covered with plastic wrap, and topped with a big pink bow. “I made cranberry muffins yesterday—I promised I’d bring them for Grace to try—but Lottie says she stayed home today.”

“She wasn’t feeling up to par, but I’m sure she’ll appreciate the muffins when she gets back.” I could imagine how much Grace would appreciate them.

The phone rang and Lottie answered it up front. A moment later she peeked through the curtain. “Phone call, Abby.”

There was an awkward silence as we waited for Sheila to make a move to leave, and when she didn’t, I said, “Excuse me a moment,” and got up.

“That’s okay,” Sheila said with a sad sigh, as if it hadn’t occurred to her that she might be intruding. “You go ahead.”

I glanced at Lottie and she shrugged.

As I reached for the phone, Sheila eased off the stool and began to explore the room, gazing at the silk flowers and vases on the upper shelves, touching and peering, even opening the big cooler to look inside. She picked up the pruning shears Lottie had left on the table and looked them over.

I turned my back on her and said into the telephone, “Abby Knight.”

“Josiah is off the list?” I heard Marco ask. I could tell by the crackling in the background that he was on the road somewhere.

“He’s off the list,” I said. “Where have you been? I’ve left messages all over the place.”

“Averting another crisis, at least for the time being. I told my sister to go see a marriage counselor for the next one. Have you turned in the video?”

“No, Grace has it, and before you start lecturing me on the rules of evidence, here’s why. Grace has a device that will magnify the faces, so I’m going to stop by after work and watch the video on her television. But don’t worry. I promise I’ll turn it in afterward.”

Behind me, I heard Lottie exclaim, “What the hell happened to your face?”

I glanced around to see Sheila holding up her sleeves as she relayed her story.

“Did something happen?” Marco asked.

I said quietly, “Sheila is here. It seems Gunther roughed her up because of my visit last night.”

“She reported him, didn’t she?”

“I think Lottie is trying to convince her to do that right now,” I whispered.

“All right. Let me know if you identify the faces on the video. And if you want me to turn it in for you, bring it down to the bar. I’ll be there the rest of the day.” He lowered his voice to husky, a tone I hadn’t heard in a while, which meant things really had improved on his end. “Maybe we can even sneak back to my office with a couple glasses of bubbly.”

Images of the two of us getting cozy on his carpet skated through my mind. Maybe I’d hunt down a loaf of French bread and a hunk of cheese and make it a full-fledged party for two—except that I wouldn’t be able to make it. Damn! If I didn’t show up for dinner at the country club, my mother would worry and my father would have an APB issued within the hour. I had this horrible picture of Marco and me getting cozy inside, while a SWAT team gathered outside.

“I have to go to dinner at the country club tonight,” I said with a disappointed sigh. “Family duties. You know how that goes.”

“Yeah, tell me about it.”

“Can I have a raincheck? Like for tomorrow night?”

“You got it, sunshine. Someone just beeped me. I’ll see you later.”

I hung up smiling broadly and turned to find Sheila tucking her paper sack under her arm. “Thanks for talking to me,” she said with a hangdog look. “I know you’re busy, and I got lots of stuff to do. It’s my day off and you know how those chores pile up.”

“Did you want to leave the muffins for Grace?” I asked. “We have a refrigerator in back. I’ll put them inside and make sure Grace gets them.”

“That’s okay. I think I’ll just bring them by tomorrow.”

We watched her clomp out of the shop, then Lottie shook her head in frustration. “She really should report that man to the police.”

“Sheila certainly seemed frightened of Gunther, didn’t she?” I said, returning to my bamboo project.

Lottie snorted from inside the cooler, where she was pulling flowers for another arrangement. “Wouldn’t you be?”

“I don’t know. Something doesn’t feel right. We’ve seen Sheila in action. Does she seem the type to be cowed by a dishwasher she refers to as a blockhead?”

“I hear those wheels grinding again,” Lottie said, emerging from the cold. “What are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking there has to be a reason that little alarm is buzzing in my head.”

“Maybe the alarm is telling you it’s almost five o’clock and we still have these orders to finish.”

I glanced at my watch. “You’re right. I’d better stop talking if I want to have time to watch the video with Grace before I go to dinner.”

Half an hour later, I set the alarm, locked the shop, and dashed across the street to my car. Just as I started the engine, my phone rang. I flipped it open and said, “Hey, Marco, I’m on my way to Grace’s now.”

“Abby, I—Reilly—banquet”—his voice sound like popcorn popping—“found—body—”

“What? A body? I can’t hear you, Marco. You’re breaking up.”

“—body at the banquet center—stabbed with—”

“Whose body?” I shouted.

There was dead air on the other end, but my mind wasn’t dead. Far from it. It seemed to be going seventy miles an hour. All I could think of was that Sheila had gone to report Gunther to Anthony after all, and Gunther had killed her.

Then Marco’s voice came back. “Are you there? Can you hear me?”

“You’re coming in clear now. Tell me what happened.”

“Reilly just called from the banquet center. There’s been another murder.”

“Was it Sheila?”

“No, Gunther.”

Gunther? I was so stunned I had to shut off the engine. “Marco, Gunther was the only one left on my list.”

“Better start a new list. He was stabbed with a kitchen knife out by the garbage bin.”

“Oh, my God, Marco. Sheila has access to those knives.”

“I know. There’s a hunt out for her. A squad car went to her apartment to pick her up for questioning, but she wasn’t there.”

“Who found Gunther’s body?”

“Reilly. After he talked to us, he did a little more digging and came up with some interesting information about one of the Garden of Eden’s new employees.”

“Sheila?”

“Yep. She was fired from her job at a bank a month ago because of suspected fraud. What clinched it for Reilly was that the scheme she had used was identical to the one Jack had used on Richard Davis. Then he found out that Jack had been living with her, so he checked—more—found—”

“You’re breaking up again, Marco.” I waited for the connection to clear up, and when it didn’t, I said, “If you can hear me, I’m on my way to Grace’s house to watch the video. Keep me posted on developments there. And if you want to come watch the video with us, the address is three two five Greenleaf. It’s two blocks north of Lincoln.”

I put my phone away and started the engine, thinking back over Sheila’s behavior—her helpful information about Gunther, her drop-in visits, her nosy questions, her eavesdropping . . . When I combined that with her relationship with Jack, Gunther’s death, and now Sheila on the loose, I got a queasy feeling in the pit of my stomach. One thing was clear, she was not a stable person. It made me all the more anxious to find out who those faces were on the video.