Fatal Brushstroke (An Aurora Anderson Mystery Book 1) (26 page)

Chapter 38

“Next time, keep your phone turned on and with you when you go snooping around so I can warn you when something goes wrong,” Liz said to Rory two days later.

The two sat on the couch at Arika’s Scrap ’n Paint while Veronica perched on a chair facing them, diligently taking notes as well as recording the conversation.

On this Friday afternoon, only a handful of customers browsed the sales floor. Out of the corner of her eye, Rory spied one of them flipping through instruction books in a nearby aisle, the customer’s gaze periodically straying to the sitting area. Moments later, Arika gently steered the woman to a display closer to the front of the store.

“Let’s hope there is no next time.” Rory touched the spot near her temple where the bat had struck, still tender from the assault. She’d regained consciousness on the way to the emergency room where she was treated for the blow to her head as well as numerous bumps and bruises. The doctors had stressed how lucky she’d been to sustain such minor injuries considering she’d been pulled from a burning building.

“I’m just glad Dashing D believed me. I had a hard time selling him on the urgency of the situation.” Liz shivered as if visualizing what might have happened had the detective chosen to ignore her plea for help.

“So, let me get this straight,” Veronica said. “You,” she pointed at Liz with her pen, “asked Nora to give you a private painting lesson to keep her occupied while you,” she pointed at Rory, “searched the studio for evidence.”

“That was the plan,” Rory said.

“Only she figured out what you were up to, right?” Veronica continued.

“I dialed Rory’s cell to tell her Nora hadn’t shown up, but we know how
that
turned out. When she didn’t answer, I called Detective Green and told him what was going on.” A faint buzzing tickled the air, and Liz glanced down at the cell phone she held in her lap. “Excuse me. I have to take this.” She made her way to the front of the store and stepped outside to take the call, leaving Rory to deal with Veronica’s questions alone.

The newest member of the
Vista Beach View’s
reporting team had been assigned to write an article on the murders and the aftermath, a more hard-news piece than the feature Veronica had written on the paint-a-thon that appeared in Thursday’s print edition.

Rory shifted on the couch, trying to find a more comfortable position for her aching body. The interview had barely started and she wanted to go home. She reminded herself she’d agreed to talk with Veronica, hoping she’d have some control over how she was portrayed on Vista Beach Confidential and in the newspaper.

“What made you suspect Nora?” Veronica continued.

Muffled giggles and snickers broke Rory’s concentration. When she looked around and couldn’t identify the source of the noise, she dismissed it as her imagination and returned her attention to the conversation. “She had Hester’s keys in her purse,” she replied.

Veronica jotted something down on her notepad. “How did you know they were Hester’s keys?”

“They had a Mercedes logo on them, and Nora drives a Toyota.”

“I’m a little confused. When did you see them?”

“At Trudy’s wake. Nora was looking for something in her purse and dumped everything on the table. At first, I didn’t realize the keys were significant. When I got home and was looking at the photos you took, I realized what I’d thought was a wooden pin was really a key chain. You see, Hester and Nora had demoed a project together. Hester made her rose into a key chain while Nora’s became a pin. Then I remembered the logos and, after that, the rest of the pieces just fell into place.”

Rory reviewed in her mind the little things that had stacked up to point toward Nora as the murderer: the button from Hester’s suit Rory found next to Nora’s car; the keys and key chain; and the musky perfume her mother had smelled the night she was attacked that had turned out to belong to Hester’s protégé.

Veronica flipped to a new page in her notebook. “That must have taken her a lot of time and effort, covering up everything she’d done.”

Rory glanced over at the cash register where Arika was ringing up a sale. Guilt nagged at her every time she thought of her own role in the attack on her mother. If she hadn’t told Nora about the originals they’d found in Hester’s safe, the woman would never have vandalized the store in an effort to destroy them. “A lot of people got hurt in the process.”

“If it hadn’t been for you and Liz, she would have gotten away with it,” Veronica continued.

“I wouldn’t say that,” a deep voice said.

The two women turned to find Detective Green standing steps away from them. When another muffled tee-hee reached their ears, the man frowned and peered around a display, flushing out a pair of giggling teens who’d apparently been hiding in the next aisle. After the two young girls had fled the scene, he sat down on the arm of the sofa next to Rory.

“How’s Nora, Detective? Were you able to question her? Is she going to make it?” Hand poised above her notepad, Veronica appeared ready and eager to take down each and every word the man said.

Detective Green shook his head. “Doesn’t look good. She has third-degree burns over a large part of her body.”

At the grim news, an overwhelming sadness washed over Rory. She longed for the comfort of a package of Thin Mints and a marathon of “The Big Bang Theory.”

Veronica consulted her notebook. “I understand fibers you found in the wheelbarrow Nora used to move the body to the dumping site match those from a blanket in her car. What other corroborating evidence did you find? And why couldn’t you have realized Nora was the culprit sooner? You might have saved a life, if you had.”

The detective’s eyes narrowed, but he held his temper. “I’d like to speak with Ms. Anderson alone now, please.”

“I don’t have anything else to say, anyway.” Rory felt relieved she wouldn’t have to answer any more of the woman’s questions, but also worried whatever the detective wanted to discuss would prove to be more upsetting.

Veronica gathered her belongings and stuffed them in her tote bag. She was halfway to the front of the store when Detective Green called out to her. “You forgot something.” He held out the digital recorder he’d found under a corner of the couch. Veronica blushed and grabbed the item, then hurried out the front door.

“I have some news I thought you’d like to know,” the detective said to Rory once the woman was out of earshot. “I didn’t want to talk about it in front of the press.”

Rory braced herself for what he was about to tell her, determined to stay strong no matter what he said. “What is it?”

“I know why Nora tried to frame you. Your run-in with Hester gave her the idea.”

“How did she know about that?”

“She overheard Hester talking with Julian. There’s something else.” He stopped as if reviewing what he was about to say in his mind, choosing his words carefully. “It has to do with your birth parents and their arson spree.”

“My birth parents?”

“I’m sure you know Chief Marshall doesn’t trust you. He has a lot of influence around here. A lot of people in town look up to him, so...”

“They don’t trust me, either,” Rory finished for him.

“That’s right.”

“Was that all it was, me being an easy target to pin a murder on?”

“Not entirely. You’re familiar with the Big Sister, Little Sister program, right? That fire at the doctor’s office they set twenty-odd years ago killed a woman whose daughter became Nora’s Little Sister. Eventually, she grew up to become a nurse and the woman Nora’s husband ran off with.”

“So she holds my birth parents responsible for the break-up of her marriage? Because the daughter would never have been her Little Sister if her mother hadn’t died? That seems a little extreme.”

“She doesn’t really blame them. It just made it easier for her to rationalize framing you.”

“An added bonus,” Rory said to herself.

With Chief Marshall’s attitude toward her now public knowledge, Rory wondered if she’d ever be accepted in Vista Beach. “Thanks for letting me know. And for pulling me out of the building. I owe you.” She smiled at the man. If she were looking for a date, Detective Green was just the kind of guy she’d want to go out with. But she wasn’t. He might not even be single.

The detective awkwardly patted her on the arm. Before he could say anything else, Liz walked over to them and said, “I hope you two are finished. I have strict orders to take Rory home now.” She motioned toward the front of the store where Arika stood talking with a customer.

Soon after, the two young women headed out the door. On the way to her place, Rory filled Liz in on everything her friend had missed.

“I feel a little sorry for Nora. I’m not sure what I’d do if someone crushed my dreams like Hester crushed hers. Though I’d like to think I wouldn’t hurt anyone,” Liz said.

“I know what you mean. No matter what Hester and Trudy did, they didn’t deserve to be murdered.”

Liz parked the car in Rory’s driveway and turned off the engine. “I’m glad it’s over. Now things can get back to normal.”

Rory stared through the windshield at the place she’d called home for the last year. “Will it, though? I’m not sure people will ever look at me the same again.”

“You’re already yesterday’s news. Pretty soon it’ll all be a vague memory to everyone.”

“I hope you’re right.” Rory thanked her friend for the ride and headed inside for a nap.

She woke up an hour and a half later, resolved to stick it out in Vista Beach awhile longer. Just in case she changed her mind later, she decided to make sure everything in the house was in order for a quick sale. She moved around the place, making a mental note of anything that needed to be repaired before putting it on the market. Other than some serious cleaning and a minor leak in a faucet, she didn’t see anything else she needed to take care of inside.

When she stepped out the back door, Rory glanced at the porch light. She’d call someone to fix that tomorrow. Her gaze swept the garden and found it in better shape than it had been only two days before.

Her mother had sent over her own gardener to perform general yard maintenance—weeding, mowing, and trimming—but the flowerbed where her world had changed still remained empty. Mrs. Griswold had given her the name of a competent landscaper who could complete the project she’d started several weeks ago. Another task for tomorrow, she decided.

Rory stared down at the tenantless flowerbed and gasped at the sight of several cigarette butts similar to those she’d seen right before she’d unearthed Hester’s body. With the toe of her tennis shoe, she pushed some dirt around, but this time she didn’t find anything unexpected beneath the surface. Moments later, when another cigarette butt sailed through the air and landed next to her foot, an involuntary “Hey!” erupted from her mouth. The face of a twenty-something man with a sheepish grin on his face popped up on Mrs. Griswold’s side of the fence.

“Sorry about that,” Mrs. Griswold’s grandson said. “Didn’t know you were there.”

“Are the rest of these yours, too?” She pointed down at the butts scattered around the empty flowerbed.

“Sorry. Granny doesn’t let anyone smoke in the house.” Albert leaned further over the fence and lowered his voice. “She thinks I quit several months ago. Don’t tell her, okay? You know how she is. I’ll never hear the end of it.”

Rory had no doubt Mrs. Griswold would give her grandson a strict talking to should she discover his bad habit. “I won’t tell her if you stop throwing them over the fence.”

The young man nodded, a relieved look on his face, and disappeared from view. She was about to leave the backyard when his face reappeared. “I read on that blog, Vista Beach Confidential, how you solved those murders. Pretty impressive,” he said. “I’m glad you’re living next to my grandmother.”

At least someone was on her side, Rory thought. Maybe there were others like him who actually lived in town. If only she could say the same about Chief Marshall.

Rory was inspecting the front yard when a patrol car pulled into her driveway. With some trepidation, she watched as Chief Marshall hauled his considerable bulk out of the car and crossed the lawn toward her. The neighbor who’d been washing his car the last time the chief stopped by paused his hedge trimming, eyeing the two of them with obvious interest.

The chief nodded his head in greeting, then stood silently with his arms akimbo.

“What can I do for you, Chief?” Rory said, bracing herself for harsh words.

Looking more uncomfortable than she’d ever seen him look, the man cleared his throat. Rory waited patiently for him to say something. She’d almost given up when he said, “I was wrong about you.”

She knew those words must have taken a lot of effort for him to say. “Thank you.”

Chief Marshall extended his hand, and Rory cautiously shook it.

“I’m sorry about what my birth parents did to your family.”

The chief looked off into the distance. “My daughter would have been about your age. Her birthday’s tomorrow. On her last one, I gave her a teddy bear. She loved that thing. Slept with it every night. They found her hugging it, you know.”

Rory’s heart went out to the man. Every time he saw her, he must think about his daughter and what she might have been: a cop, a lawyer, a doctor, or even something in the software business like Rory herself. “I’m sorry.”

Another nod and he started back to his car. He’d almost reached it when he turned around and said, “Remember, though, you and everyone else still have to obey the law.”

At least he’d lumped her in with the rest of the city’s residents, Rory thought, as the police car backed out onto the street. Maybe once word got around the head of the Vista Beach police department no longer considered her a pariah, the rest of the people in town would be more accepting of her.

She glanced across the street and her neighbor waved in greeting. Her heart a little lighter now that an uneasy truce had been established with Chief Marshall, Rory headed into the backyard to figure out what she’d ask the gardener to plant in the empty flowerbed.