Framed For Murder (An Anna Nolan Mystery) (3 page)

I reached the restaurant about half an hour before the lunch crowd and paused to peer in the plate glass window, wanting to see how busy the place was.
With a town this small, I was sure that news of Jack’s death had gotten around, and I wasn’t up to answering questions from curiosity seekers. The restaurant was almost empty, so I stepped inside, walked up to the old-fashioned chrome counter, and sat on one of the five red vinyl stools. To the right of the counter, pushed up against the wall, was a huge jukebox that played hits from the ‘50s and ‘60s. Behind me, eight tables with plastic place mats and dried flower arrangements were grouped around the floor.

Frank Crow, The Diner’s owner and cook, was an ardent Elvis Presley fan.
Frank had visited Grace Land four times and even bought one of Elvis’ glittery Vegas costumes at an auction sale. The costume was mounted in a glass display case, and positioned in pride of place just inside the door.

Mr. Andrews was seated at one of the tables for two with his head bent over the local newspaper, a cup of coffee at his elbow.
He was a retired rancher who had never married and mostly kept his own company. I suspected that he was actually lonely because he spent most of his mornings in the restaurant, reading the paper and sipping coffee.

“Morning, Mr. Andrews,” I called from the counter.
He was dressed in his usual tan corduroy jacket and jeans. He grunted and nodded without lifting his eyes. Mary, the full-time waitress, was filling salt shakers at the counter, and I could see Frank working at the grill through the kitchen pass-through. “Morning Mary,” I said just as Frank called, “Is that Anna?”

“Hi, Frank – yeah, it’s me,” I called back.
We had first met at the Catholic church here in town, and most Saturdays I ate breakfast at his restaurant. He hurried out the swinging door headed straight for me.

Frank was sixtyish with long grey hair pulled into a pony tail, a full beard, and a moustache.
He always wore jeans, a crisp white shirt covered by a white apron, and cowboy boots when he was working. He leaned over the counter and pulled me into a bear hug. That was a surprise. His girlfriend, Judy, only let Frank hug me on my birthday and New Year’s Eve. Anything more than that, and she clipped him one alongside the head. He must have been really worried about me.

Frank let go of me and looked into my eyes.
“How’re you doing, honey?” he asked.

“You heard?”

“Of course. Cecilia was in this morning.” Cecilia was the receptionist at the RCMP station.

Mary brought me my standing beverage, a glass of apple juice, and lingered on the other side of the counter while Frank sat down beside me on one of the stools.

“That woman ought to keep police business to herself,” I muttered.

“It wasn’t just her – the boys were talking, too,” Mary said.

I sighed. “Sometimes I just hate living in a small town.”

Frank said, “Come on, Anna, you know we’re all just worried about you.
How’re you feeling? How’s Ben taking it?” Ben had bussed tables for Frank before graduating from high school, and Frank still took a fatherly interest in him.

“I haven’t told Ben yet, to tell you the truth.
It was pretty late when I got home from the police station last night – I mean this morning. I just crawled out of bed half an hour ago.” Frank nodded as if he already knew what time I got home. “Ben is coming home for dinner tonight, so I’ll tell him then. I didn’t want to tell him about his father over the phone.”

“How upset do you think he’ll be, honey?” Frank asked.

“I don’t know, Frank. He wrote Jack off last June when his father didn’t come to his high school graduation. I don’t know how upset Ben will be when he finds out. You know, Ben and his father didn’t see each other for years, but that was Jack’s doing. Now they’ll never have a chance to patch things up.”

“Poor kid, that sure is rough,” Frank said, patting my hand.
“But you said that you just crawled out of bed. Are you hungry? Do you want me to fix you some breakfast, Anna?”

“That would be great, Frank.
I know it doesn’t sound right with my ex-husband dead and my son about to find out, but I’m so hungry that I could eat some of Henry’s poutine.” Henry Fellows owned Hank’s Hearty Home-Cooking, The Diner’s only competition in town. It was kitty-corner from Frank’s restaurant and had just opened last Christmas. Henry’s menu featured hot meat sandwiches and poutine. I don’t think that Frank had anything to worry about.

Frank shivered and laid a hand on my shoulder.
“Come on, Anna, I know things are rough, but there’s no need to talk suicide.”

I laughed and gave him a peck on the cheek.
“Thanks, Frank. I could use a good laugh.”

He winked and got up off his stool.
“You just make yourself comfortable, Anna, and I’ll make you some bacon and pancakes.” Three strips of bacon and two big pancakes were my weekly Saturday indulgence. “Mary and I will look after you.”

He went back to his kitchen while Mary considered me.
She was in her early thirties, skinny as a rail and flat everywhere, which she emphasized by wearing the tightest jeans and shortest skirts known to man. The town joke was that Mary should have been a magician because she disappeared whenever she turned sideways.

“Bless his heart, I know he just cleaned off the grill to start the chicken breasts, and now he’s going to make you bacon.
He’s a good man,” she said.

I nodded in agreement.
“They don’t come any better, Mary. Now tell me – you know everything that’s going on around here – was my ex-husband, Jack, working on a movie somewhere nearby?”

“Don’t tell me you didn’t know, Anna?
It started shooting outside of Longview about a month ago.”

“No, I honestly don’t know anything about it.
I sort of remember reading in the newspaper that there was a movie shooting in the Foothills, but I didn’t realize that Jack was in it. Funny that no one mentioned it to me.”

Mary nodded, popping her bubble gum.
“People were just being tactful, I guess. Everybody knows what a skunk your ex was. Anyway, Viggo Mortensen is starring in it. It’s a western. I think it’s called ‘Crossed Trails.’”

“Really?
Who was Jack playing?”

“I don’t know,
Anna. Viggo’s playing the sheriff, though.”

I nodded, picturing Viggo Mortensen in a cowboy hat with a sheriff’s badge pinned to his leather vest.
“Yeah, he’d be good at that. Where are the cast and crew staying – at Creekside?” Creekside had been a working ranch until it was transformed into a motel-come-spa. The rich oil crowd didn’t go near it because it’s too primitive for them – guests could only access Wi-Fi in the lobby and there was no helicopter pad – but it was the only venue large enough to house a movie cast and crew around here. Jack, Ben and I had stayed there for a few days when we first arrived in Alberta, but it had been too pricey to stay there for long.

“Yeah, where else?
Although I hear they’ve hired some of the locals to be extras so they don’t have to worry about putting them up.”

“Do you know which locals they hired, Mary?”

“Sorry, Anna, I don’t.” She looked up as Frank rang the pass-through bell. “Your food’s ready.”

I was forking up pancake soaked in maple syrup when I heard an engine roaring out on the street.
The engine cut off abruptly and, moments later, the restaurant door was flung open.

“Morning, Mary.
Morning, Mr. Andrews. Anna Nolan, what are you doing here? The whole town is talking about you. So, is it true? Did you kill that son-of-a-bitch husband of yours?”

I winced and swivelled on my stool to face Clive Wampole.
Clive was a little older than my forty years, a big lump of a man who lived on a farm with his aging mother. Clive didn’t own a car. He favoured a bright blue tractor as his mode of transportation, and it was as beautiful to him as a Porsche would be to other men. Because he spent so much time driving his tractor, Clive was mostly deaf, and he shouted to make up for his hearing deficiency.

“Hi Clive,” I shouted.
“That’s ex-husband. And no, I did not kill him!” I shook my head emphatically to get my point across.

“You don’t say?
People are saying they wouldn’t blame you if you had killed him, seeing as how he was sleeping with anything wearing a skirt out on that movie set.”

I bridled a little.
Jack had slept around while he was married to me, but he hadn’t slept with just anyone. He did have some standards, after all – or, he used to. “Really? Who was he sleeping with, Clive?”

“What?” he bellowed.

“Who was Jack sleeping with?” I said, enunciating clearly.

“Well, Amy Bright, for one.
I hear she’s playing one of the saloon girls. I wonder if she wears one of those low-cut blouses and big, ruffled skirts that saloon girls always wear in the movies. Amy sure would look good in that.”

I nodded.
I knew Amy to see her. She was a little younger than me, a divorcée who ran a hair salon out of her house here in Crane. She was very attractive with big blue eyes, bright auburn hair, a curvy figure, and a friendly disposition, just the kind of woman that Jack would have gone for. Maybe that’s what Jack had been doing in Crane on the night he died. Maybe Amy had something to do with Jack’s death. For the first time since discovering his body, I felt hopeful.

People were starting to come through the door for lunch and were staring at me.
I pulled a couple of fives out of my wallet and waved them at Mary. “Tell Frank thanks very much for breakfast, Mary. Tell him he’s a life-saver.”

“Sure will,
Anna. You stay out of trouble, now.”

I grimaced as she guffawed at her little joke.
I turned to Clive, who sat beside me studying the specials board.

“Thanks for the information, Clive,” I shouted, clapping him on the shoulder to get his attention.

“Sure thing. You going now, Anna? Say, are the police going to arrest you?”

Several curious heads turned in our direction.
I shook my head and yelled, “Not today, I don’t think.” Keeping my eyes lowered, I bolted out the door before anyone could stop me and headed for home. That was just about all the attention that I could handle for one day.

Chapter Four

Friday night suppers with Ben were an institution. Even though he was enrolled in Chinook University’s computer science program, our schedules were very different and we didn’t get to see a lot of each other on campus. Eating dinner together at home once a week was our way of staying in touch. Since I was home today, I put a pork loin in the oven. By the time Ben arrived at 5:30, I was nervously mashing the potatoes.

He came through the door with a sack of dirty laundry and kissed me on the cheek before starting a load in the washing machine.
When he was ready, we sat down to eat at the kitchen table with Wendy lying at our feet. I studied my son’s expression as he helped himself to a large serving of pork and some cheesy broccoli.

Ben was nineteen, and I could see traces of the man he would become in his face.
He already had a man’s stature, with his father’s wide shoulders and slim hips, but it would take a few years for his weight to catch up with his height. He had my brown hair and brown eyes, and wore his hair shaggy with the wisp of a goatee on his chin. He had never had a problem attracting girls, but wasn’t serious about anyone right now, as far as I knew.

I decided to put off telling him about Jack until after dinner, so we chatted about how his week had gone at the summer job he had with a Calgary building supply store.
Ben had worked there part-time during the school year, and had been lucky enough to get full-time hours when classes were over. He put on the kettle to make a cup of tea when we finished eating, and piled our dirty dishes beside the sink. After he had fixed his tea and sat down again, I broke the news to him about his dad. Ben stared at me until I had run out of words, and then cleared his throat.

“So, he’s dead, Mom?”

“Yes, honey, he’s gone.” There was a long pause while he absorbed these words. I could see the shock in Ben’s face.

“And you found him while you were out walking Wendy?
He was just lying on the ground in some bush beside Wistler Road?”

“That’s right, honey.”

Ben frowned and thought some more.
“You said he’d been shooting a film in Longview, but you hadn’t heard from him?”

“No.
Your father didn’t call me or stop by the house. I would have told you about it if he had. I had no idea that he was even in this part of the country.”

“And the police haven’t told you how he died yet?”

“No, honey, it takes some time to get the test results. But he was shot in the chest. I’m pretty sure that it was murder.” I watched Ben, waiting for his reaction to that ugly and frightening word. He scowled and got up from the table.

“I’ve got to put my load in the dryer.”

“Ben?” I called after him as he rushed from the room. The washer and dryer were in the basement, and I heard his feet pounding down the stairs. I decided to give him a few minutes to himself, and loaded the dishes into the dishwasher. I was cleaning the sink when I heard his step behind me.